An inmate at a Kansas prison has been released after 17 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, after researchers tracked down his lookalike.

Richard Anthony Jones was sent to prison for a robbery in 1999 in Roeland Park, Kansas.

There was no DNA evidence or fingerprints linking him to the crime scene, and at trial Mr Jones said that he was with his girlfriend and other family members in Kansas City on the day of the robbery.

But he was convicted on eyewitness accounts, and sentenced to 19 years.

Mr Jones said that he began to despair that he would ever be released from jail, after repeated efforts to appeal against his sentence.

"All my appeals had been denied. It has been a rough ride," he said.

In 2015 he told researchers from the Midwest Innocence Project - a group that aids wrongly convicted prisoners - about a man called Ricky he had heard about. Mr Jones had been told by fellow inmates that he looked identical to Ricky.

Researchers finally managed to track Ricky down, and discovered that he lived within 10 miles of the crime scene.

"When I saw the picture of my double it all made sense to me," he said.