A PROLIFIC criminal escaped from a police car in handcuffs and went on the run for two days before he was flushed out hiding in a portable toilet.

Michael Holpin had also claimed he was his twin brother Luke when he was first arrested, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

Officers were looking for the 21-year-old after he attacked his girlfriend in Llanhilleth last August by slapping her across the face.

Prosecutor Kathryn Lane said Holpin and his then partner had only been in a relationship for two months before it “took a turn for the worse”.

The defendant was described as being “jealous and insecure” and assaulted her following a “heated” argument.

Officers found Holpin at Aberbeeg’s Glandwr Industrial Estate and he was handcuffed and placed in a police car.

The court heard that as the claims he was his brother were being checked, the defendant managed to wind down the window of the vehicle and flee.

The officers chased him, even at one stage running through a house Holpin had darted into, but he managed to escape following “an extensive search”.

Miss Lane said that two days later police were investigating a car crash in Newbridge when a dog handler found him hiding in a portable toilet at the side of the road.

Holpin was no longer in the handcuffs when he was arrested.

Miss Lane told the court that the defendant 24 previous convictions for 60 offences, including violence, sexual offences, weapons and public disorder.

A victim impact statement read on behalf of the complainant said she had been “really scared” of him and that she “didn’t know what he was capable of”.

Hoplin, of Parc Prison, Bridgend, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, escape from custody, taking a vehicle without consent (his ex’s Vauxhall Corsa) and driving without insurance.

Jeffrey Jones, mitigating, said of the escape conviction that “no aggression or violence” was used.

He asked Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke to keep the inevitable custodial sentence as short as possible.

She jailed Holpin for 10 months and two weeks and imposed a five-year restraining order prohibiting him from contacting his former girlfriend.

He was also banned from driving and must pay a victim surcharge upon his release from custody.