A SERIAL burglar who was mistakenly released from prison on April Fools’ Day before he was due to be sentenced for his latest crimes is back behind bars.

Steven Burr, 35, who spent three weeks on the run after the bungle by prison staff at HMP Durham was jailed on Friday (April 22) at Newcastle Crown Court for a number of burglaries after his re-arrest days ago.

Sentencing the 35-year-old to 20 months in prison, Judge Edward Bindloss said he was not punishing him for his non-appearance as it was an “administrative error” on the part of the Prison Service.

The crook was released part-way through his last sentence, but after being charged with the latest offences, he was remanded in custody and recalled to prison to serve 28 days for breaching his licence conditions.

After doing his 28 days, HMP Durham released him, despite the fact that he was still on remand for the new offences.

The Judge said: “You should have been here on the day appointed, but the Home Office recorded custody of 28 days which lapsed on April 1, when the Prison Service wrongly and in error released you.

“It was an error because the magistrates had remanded you to appear here. It seems to have been an administrative error."

He added: “I am told that the period you were at large, between April 1 and April 21, there was no further offending, so thankfully nothing extra has been occasioned by this prison service error.

“Further I do not treat your failure to attend before me as an offence I can punish you with, because you weren’t released on bail.”

Burr of Wilbury Place, Blakelaw, Newcastle, pleaded guilty at North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court to burglary on February 21 and asked for three similar offences to be taken into consideration.

Tony Hawks, mitigating, said Burr had a Valium problem and found it difficult coping with life outside prison.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: "Due to an administrative error, a HMP Durham prisoner was mistakenly released from custody on Friday, April 1.

"These incidents are very rare and releases in error have fallen by around a third since 2009 but we take each one seriously and are not complacent. We will be investigating exactly how this occurred to see what lessons we can learn to prevent it happening again."