A PRISONER who appeared for sentence on his 21st birthday yesterday was released from custody by a judge.

Burglar Christopher O'Keefe's lawyer said prison was a depressing way for his client to spend his birthday.

O'Keefe and his older brother Michael, who is on the run from police, were caught with six guitars, worth £2,000, which they had stolen from a house in Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough.

Police stopped their white Ford Transit van which had been spotted earlier earlier reversing up the drive of a house in Beechfield, Coulby Newham.

Michael O'Keefe got a ladder, climbed on to the garage roof and through an open window. He removed the guitars, and Christopher O'Keefe, who was talking to the van driver, put them inside the vehicle, said prosecutor Robin Turton.

Michael O'Keefe admitted committing the burglary but Christopher O'Keefe claimed that he had no knowledge of what he was doing until he was handed the guitars.

Sarah Megyery, defending, said that the brothers were in the area because they were working as roofers.

They went on the run when it was clear that they faced a prison sentence. Christopher was arrested on November 6 and he has been in custody since.

Miss Megyery said: "He is and has been an impressionable young man who wants to please and to go along with the crowd, and it was a misplaced sense of loyalty to his older brother that drew him into this."

O'Keefe of Chandlers Close, Hartlepool, who pleaded guilty to the burglary, on May 21, was given a 12-month community punishment order and two years' community rehabilitation with attendance on a Think First programme.