A MAN armed with two kitchen knives threatened three brothers when he broke into their home looking for jewellery.

Gary Turner terrorised the brothers in the early hours of the morning when he woke one while standing over his bed with a scarf over his face brandishing a large kitchen knife in each hand.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the defendant demanded the man hand over jewellery before stealing iPhone X and cigarettes from his bedroom.

Martin Towers, prosecuting, said it was the mobile telephone's tracking device that led police to Turner's Middlesbrough home where they found him hiding underneath a bench in the garden.

He said Turner went into the bedroom of one of the brothers and demanded that he hand over jewellery while threatening him with the knives.

"He (Turner) ordered him downstairs," he added. "It was clear that the there had been some sort of search carried out. The defendant stumbled and this gave the man the opportunity to shove him over and run upstairs to raise the alarm with his two brothers.

"The brothers hid in a bedroom until the police arrived. The defendant didn't realise that the iPhone had a find my phone device fitted to it and when it was activated the police were able to follow it to Boscombe Gardens area of Hemlington.

"They rang the phone and found it in the garden along with a stolen Berghaus jacket – this property was the one where the defendant was living at the time. The police then found him elsewhere in the garden hiding under a bench."

Turner, of Boscombe Gardens, Hemlington, pleaded guilty to robbery and possession of a small amount of cannabis.

In mitigation, Paul Abrahams said his client had no memory of the offence as he had taken the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and had been smoking skunk cannabis.

Turner, who was appearing in court via a videolink from Durham Prison, read out a letter of apology to the three brothers for the distress he accepts he must have caused.

Mr Abrahams added: "He threatened them with a knife but it was not used physically, and mercifully, no one was seriously injured."

The judge Recorder David Kelly sentenced Turner to seven years in custody with an extended period of licence for a further four years.

He said: "You made the conscious decision to take two large kitchen knives to the bedroom to terrorise the victim to get him to hand over jewellery, you clearly believed he had."