A TEENAGER who burgled his grandmother’s home wrote to her from custody urging her to drop the charges.

But Durham Crown Court heard that Michael Kieran Gough had already made admissions to police and so there was never any prospect of the allegation not being pursued.

Gough, 19, took cigarettes, a mobile phone and some loose change to an unknown value when he entered his grandmother’s home, in Lime Road, Ferryhill, County Durham, as an intruder on May 8.

Liam O’Brien, prosecuting, said when he was arrested he admitted what he had done.

Having appeared at the court for a preliminary hearing accused of burglary on June 8, he was remanded in custody, but on June 22 he wrote to his grandmother asking her not to proceed with the charges.

Mr O’Brien said this only resulted in him also being charged with perverting the course of justice.

Gough, of Eden Road, Spennymoor , County Durham, admitted both offences at a hearing last month, but sentence was adjourned to allow background reports to be drawn up by the Probation Service.

The court heard that he is now also serving a 12-month sentence, imposed in June, for two non-domestic burglaries.

The break-in at his grandmother’s home put him at risk of being sentenced as a threestrikes domestic burglar.

Andrew Petterson, mitigating, said the previous two house burglaries were committed when Gough was a juvenile, aged 12 and 16.

Judge Christopher Prince said, given Gough’s still young age, he would not impose the usual mandatory three-year sentence for thirdstrike burglars.

But he told Gough he had caused “grave upset” by deliberately targeting his grandmother’s home.

“You wrote a letter to your grandmother asking her to withdraw the charges. You weren’t going to achieve anything in doing that as you had already admitted it in your police interview,” he said.

He imposed a further eightmonth sentence in a young offenders’ institution to follow the 12 months already being served by Gough.