A child sex attacker who was jailed for life has been recaptured in Bradford after he failed to return to a low-security hospital.

Karlos Bringins, 54, was arrested in his home city yesterday after police mounted a nationwide search.

Bringins had failed to return to the Doncaster low-security unit after he was allowed to go on a short, unsupervised shopping trip in Hexthorpe, South Yorkshire, last Thursday.

He was given a life sentence at Leeds Crown Court in 1974 for a brutal attack on a seven-year-old boy in Bradford.

It was the second time Bringins, who is under supervision by a mental health trust, has escaped.

In 1988 he went on the run for two months before being recaptured in the south coast resort of Hastings, East Sussex.

A South Yorkshire police spokesman said Bringins had been found "safe and well" yesterday but did not give any further details.

A team of 40 officers had been looking for him, aided by the force helicopter and the mounted section.

Detective Superintendent Matt Jukes said Bringins had been returned to a secure hospital after he went missing 18 years ago but for the last ten years he had been allowed to live in a 24-hour supervised, low-security environment.

Since last October, as part of his rehabilitation treatment, doctors began to allow him ten-to-15-minute unsupervised excursions to nearby shops.

It was on one of these outings that he disappeared.

Det Supt Jukes, who urged people not to take the law into their own hands if they saw Bringins, said he was born in Bradford and had family connections there.

Dr Abed Raidh, medical director of the Doncaster and South Humberside NHS Trust, which was looking after Bringins, said the risk he posed was "difficult to quantify."

e-mail: jennifer.sugden@bradford.newsquest.co.uk