An aid worker who escaped from a police station in Africa might have been involved in a murder in Essex, it emerged today.

The Foreign Office said Mark Rothermel was among 40 prisoners in the break-out in Brazzaville, capital of the Congo Republic.

A survival expert of the same name was jailed for six years in 1989 for helping to dispose of a body in Long Spring Wood, Little Baddow.

Then 29, he was cleared at the Old Bailey of murdering 27-year-old Bernard Burns, whose headless and handless body was found in the woods.

The Foreign Office has yet to confirm it is the same man but said the escapee, who worked for Mission Aid, was from "central Essex". Another source claimed he was from Colchester.

A spokesman said prisoners, including a Briton being held on suspicion of spying, broke out after a gunfight on Tuesday between police and a soldier.

"He had been detained without charge in the police station since November 6," said the spokesman.

The riddle deepened when it emerged that the Mark Rothermel who stood trial for murder in 1989 had visited the Congo before then.

Mr Burns, of Ilford, was killed some time between January 1987 and July 1988.

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