Double killer Darren Pilkington back behind bars just six weeks after being released from prison

A notorious double killer is back behind bars just six weeks after he was freed from prison. Darren Pilkington has spent almost two decades in and out of high security jails for failing to abide by strict release conditions.

The 41-year-old was jailed for manslaughter in 2006 after he pushed his girlfriend Carly Fairhurst, 19, down the stairs during a late-night row at a house in Higher Ince, Wigan.

He left her with critical injuries for 12 hours before calling an ambulance. Carly never regained consciousness and died a week later.

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It was Pilkington’s second manslaughter conviction, having previously been jailed in 2001 aged 15 for beating to death Paul Akister, 30, outside a pub in Hindley.

Pilkington was released from jail earlier this year despite spending 18 years in and out of high-security jails for failing to abide by strict release conditions. When he was allowed to stay in an open prison in 2022, he absconded and went on the run for three days.

Despite the slew of offences, earlier this year the Parole Board recommended that he was fit to leave prison and live in a bail hostel, monitored with an electronic tag and subject to a curfew. Carly's parents, Trevor and Sheila Fairhurst, said at the time they were "disgusted" by the Parole Board decision.

Now just six weeks later Pilkington is back in prison after breaching his licence conditions once again.

Carly's parents have persistently battled to keep Pilkington behind bars, submitting impact statements to his hearing on a yearly basis.

Her dad Trevor has told of his family's frustration that Pilkington keeps being given ‘more and more chances’.

Mr Fairhurst told Wigan Today: “There is of course some sense of relief that he has been locked up again, but he should be kept in prison indefinitely, yet keeps being given more and more chances.

"Every time he gets another chance it frightens us and then every time he blows it we know that we will have to get back on that legal merry-go-round yet again in what will almost certainly be another vain attempt at stopping his further release.

"This time he’s only lasted about six weeks on the outside. He's never going to change.”

A HM Prison and Probation Service spokesperson said: “Offenders released on licence are subject to strict conditions and we do not hesitate to recall them to custody if they break the rules.”

Pilkington, who now goes by the name Darren Carr, was given a sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) after he was caged over Carly's death. This meant he only had to serve a minimum sentence of little more than three years before he could start repeatedly trying to prove he was fit for release. Following previous decisions to release Pilkington into the community, he has been returned to secure prisons for breaking the terms of his licenses.

In 2022, he absconded from Kirkham Open Prison and was on the run for three days before being captured in Horwich. This was close to an exclusion zone that surrounds Wigan borough where Carly's parents still live, an area he is forbidden from entering.

A parole hearing earlier this year decided that he should be released on licence, subject to strict conditions. These included living at a designated address, keeping away from the exclusion zone, staying on the right side of the law and submitting to enhanced supervision, including a curfew and electronic tracking.

Against him, the hearing heard there were a number of risk factors from his past. These included his attitudes towards violence and crime, his choice of a negative peer group, misuse of both alcohol and drugs, communication difficulties and a generally unstable lifestyle.

The board was also told that since his latest incarceration, his behaviour had been "generally good, that he had a trusted prison job and had obtained a vocational qualification." And they also heard that "there had been no evidence of any violent behaviour."

He had also completed work on alcohol, relapse prevention and managing boredom and stress, they were told. And he had remained on a specialist unit for those committed to recovering from their addictions and was considered to have developed a good level of insight into the risks associated with his drug use.