Two prisoners who spent 17 hours on the run after absconding while on day release from Hollesley Bay near Woodbridge have each had 10 weeks added to their sentences.

Eammon Kenevan, 22, and Darren Mellor, 39, were dropped off in Ipswich at 10am on August 10 for a resettlement day and later admitted they missed their bus back to the prison at 2pm because they had been drinking, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

The two men were spotted in Stowmarket the following day by an off-duty prison officer who escorted them to Stowmarket police station, said Michael Crimp, prosecuting.

Mellor, who was serving a six-year sentence for robbery and Kenevan, who was serving five years for a similar offence, both admitted being unlawfully at large while on temporary release from prison.

The court heard that the pair were now serving their sentences at Norwich Prison and Mellor’s earliest release date was in March next year while Kenevan wasn’t due for release until July next year.

Jailing the men for 10 weeks to run consecutively to their current sentences, Judge John Devaux said they had been at large for a relatively short time and there was no evidence they had committed any further offences.

He said an aggravating factor of the case was that they had both been drinking alcohol in breach of their licence terms.

Joanne Eley, for the two men, described what they had done as “foolish”.

She said that when they were spotted in Stowmarket they had been trying to find their way back to Hollesley Bay and due to a serious navigational error they had ended up in Stowmarket instead.

She said Mellor had been reluctant to return to Hollesley Bay because he had debts in the prison and had been threatened with assault.

Miss Eley said Kenevan had been placed under pressure to bring prohibited items back into prison and had panicked.

She accepted they had consumed alcohol after being dropped off in Ipswich.

Hollesley Bay has an operational capacity of 481 and inmates are housed across nine residential units spaced across an 85-acre site which has a public road running through the middle of it.

The units are all named after Suffolk places from the middle ages.

More than 100 prisoners work in the community on a daily basis alongside partner agencies.