Dean Michael Woods – who beat a man on the head with a golf club at the Ballysally estate outside Coleraine – has been “unlawfully at large” since at least Tuesday.

Woods was serving a sentence at HMP Maghaberry.

He is aged 46, of slim build, 5foot 5 inches, and has brown hair and brown eyes.

Woods also has a heart tattoo on his chest and a “tribal line tattoo” on his upper left arm.

He was said to be on “pre-release testing”.

On 22 January 1997 after a trial before Lord Justice MacDermott, sitting at Antrim Crown Court with a jury, the prisoner was convicted of the murder of Brian Peden on 10 December 1995.

Woods who was aged 18 at the time of the murder was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mr Peden was twenty six years old.

Details of the sentencing, show that on 8 December 1995 Woods had a golf club which he used to strike Mr Peden on the head.

Brian Peden was pronounced dead in the Royal Victoria Hospital at 8.30pm on 10 December 1995.

The judge said Woods not only armed himself with a potentially lethal weapon, “he aimed blows at the victim’s head in a manner calculated to maximise the injury inflicted”.

He added: “The victim was unarmed and after he had been disabled by the first blow was in a completely defenceless condition.

“The prisoner continued to strike the deceased after he had fallen to the ground and I do not therefore accept that his actions are more consistent with an intention to cause grievous bodily harm rather than to kill.”

News Catch Up: Wednesday 14 August