POLICE have praised residents in Nelson town centre after a fugitive, who had been on the run for 14 months, was detained.

An appeal was made via the BBC’s Crimewatch Roadshow programme for information to help catch David John Shorrock, 24.

And two separate pleas for help were made by police last summer, without any apparent success.

Police said it was only with help from public-spirited citizens in the Railway Street area that Shorrock has now been arrested and returned to Preston Prison.

Shorrock, who has lived in the Railway Street area but also had links with Blackburn and Accrington, was initially jailed for 18 months, for what police have described as a ‘serious assault’, in February 2008.

He was released from custody in early 2009 but broke his licence conditions and an order was issued for his return to prison in May.

But he had been a fugitive since then, living at various addresses in East Lancashire, police said.

He will now return to prison to serve the remainder of his 11 months inside.

A Lancashire Police spokesman said: “Shorrock has been arrested as a direct result of information from the community.”

Lancashire Police’s efforts to track down outstanding suspects has yielded a number of high-profile successes in recent months.

Runaway sex offender Dennis Bowskill, from Padiham, was tracked down to Amsterdam’s Central Station and a Colne man, wanted on child sex charges in Lancashire, was the subject of a citizen’s arrest on the Costa del Sol.