THE POLICE are searching for an absconder from HMP Leyhill in South Gloucestershire and are requesting the public's help.

Robert Stevens, aged 58, has not been seen since lunchtime on Sunday, March 9. He was reported missing at 8.30pm that day.

He is serving a six-and-a-half-year-sentence for a series of commercial robberies in 2011.

Robert Stevens is known to live an itinerant lifestyle and may carry his few possessions in a rucksack.

He has in the past travelled extensively throughout the south west (including Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall and Dorset police force areas).

He has also lived in the Bristol, Bath, Weston-super-Mar, Taunton and Yeovil areas.

He has in the past used small bed and breakfast establishments as well as hostels and will also camp when accommodation was not available.

Robert Stevens is described as a white man, aged 58 years, 5ft 6ins tall of medium build and clean-shaven with short grey hair.

He sometimes wears small rectangular-shaped glasses, which he often lifts on to his forehead.