'Skull Cracker' Michael Wheatley still being quizzed by police

A serial armed robber nicknamed the "Skull Cracker" is still being questioned by police after five days on the run from a Kent open prison.

Michael Wheatley, 55, was arrested in London following the robbery of a building society in Sunbury in Surrey on Wednesday.

The same branch of the Chelsea Building Society was raided by Wheatley in 2001, the Daily Mirror reported.

Wheatley was arrested in Tower Hamlets in east London with a 53-year-old man.

Kent Police said they were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The force added: "The 55-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of being unlawfully at large."

Wheatley, who absconded from HMP Standford Hill in Kent on Saturday, was given 13 life sentences in 2002 for raids on banks and building societies.

He has gone on the run twice in the past and each time staged a series of violent robberies before being caught and re-jailed.

A spokesman for Chelsea Building Society said no-one had been hurt in the attack at the branch in The Parade, Staines Road, but staff were left shaken.