An armed robber who escaped from prison is back behind bars thanks to the Oxford Mail - and the alertness of its assistant editor.

Police swooped on The Black Boy pub, in Headington, Oxford, to arrest Andy Ivison after a tip-off by a reader who had seen a picture of him in the Mail - which the paper had found in its archives.

When the man escaped police had been reluctant to release his picture and an initial search of the Mail's archives had proved fruitless, but assistant editor Toby Granville recalled a feature the paper had run last year about a model prisoner planning to go straight.

By a remarkable coincidence, it was Ivison and the paper had its own pictures of him.

Mail editor Simon O'Neill said: "It is not always easy to convince the police here in Oxfordshire that their local newspaper is vital to them. I understand that police lawyers did not want to release any pictures of the suspect to us.

"In the event, we had our own on file and the result was an arrest within hours of us hitting the streets.

"We're glad to have helped to remove a potentially dangerous man from our community."

Supt Jim Trotman, Oxford's police area commander, said: "I would like to thank the public for assisting us by providing the information to get this man back behind bars so rapidly and I would also like to thank the Oxford Mail for its assistance in this matter."

Ivison had been transferred to Spring Hill open prison two weeks before his escape, after initially being sent to Bullingdon Prison to serve a six-year sentence for robbing shops.

A year ago he told the Oxford Mail he planned to get a qualification while in prison and go straight when he was freed.