Former BBC reporter and stalker, Tara Stout, is out of hiding, has served her time in jail and is launching a her own clothing line, Prison Chic.

The Clapham-born comedienne, who went on the run after breaching a community punishment order for stalking Crystal Palace Football Club owner Simon Jordan, is now back in the UK.

After becoming tired of mixing with expats, gangsters and Spanish politicians Miss Stout decided to return to the UK, via a stint in a Spanish mental hospital.

Miss Stout said: “I just got bored of being in Marbella so I decided to go to Madrid. I arrived there with 10 Euros in my pocket but managed to get a place and then eventually I fell out with my neighbours.

“I went to the police to tell them I was being persecuted by the British Government and they told me someone was coming to help me.

“They bundled me in the back of white van and I was sent to a hospital, I kept asking for champagne the whole way there. That probably didn't help. After a few days I managed to talk my way out of there and I decided I needed to come back to the UK.”

Embarrassingly Miss Stout then had to call her mother who arranged for a temporary passport from the British Consulate and a flight back to Bristol airport.

When she arrived in the UK she was homeless and selling nude photos of herself to scrape a living.

She said: “I was penniless, jobless and homeless so I decided to hand myself into the police.

"I walked into a police station and told them who I was and that there was a warrant out for my arrest and I was charged and taken before South West Magistrates the next day.”

The four weeks Miss Stout spent in Holloway Prison for breaching her community service order were productive though - she began designing and making a series of knickers she calls 'Prison Chic.'

Miss Stout is launching the underwear line in July.