A FORMER long-term prisoner is back behind bars after a shoplifting spree following his release from jail.

Darren Watts, 32, was yesterday jailed for a year after admitting stealing bottles of drink from stores and supermarkets in Durham and Sunderland.

But a judge at Durham Crown Court also added 352 days to the sentence, activating an unexpired portion of a previous four-year term imposed for a spate of offending.

Among 17 offences Watts admitted at the crown court in December, 1997, was an escape from custody guards who took him to Sunderland Royal Hospital after a failed suicide bid in the holding cells of the city's magistrates' court.

On leaving the hospital, as he was about to be placed in the holding cell of a custody van, Watts asked for a drink of water.

His handcuffs were removed and Watts pushed the two Group 4 guards into the van, locking them into the holding cell, before fleeing in his slippers.

He was on the run for eight days before his rearrest after being found hiding under a bed at an address in Sunderland.

On his early release, on licence, from the four-year sentence imposed in December 1997, Watts was caught stealing bottles of drink at Safeway supermarket in Durham's Millburngate Centre, and from four stores Sunderland, earlier this year.

Watts, of The Strand, Lakeside Village, Sunderland, admitted five charges of theft and one of breaching his prison release licence.