A JUDGE has praised a householder for hunting down the burglars who stole thousands of pounds worth of entertainment equipment from his home.

Liam Collins sprung into action after he and his partner Nicola Lee, were woken in the early hours by the sound of footsteps coming from downstairs.

A court heard how Mr Collins saw an intruder fleeing from his home in Middlesbrough on April 24, and began a chase, but lost sight of him.

The householder called his father and the pair trawled the streets in his car, and later found two youths at a parade of shops more than a mile away.

Mr Collins approached the pair, but they fled and dropped part of their haul – a lap-top computer, games consoles and games, controls and cables.

Two days later, Mr Collins received a call from a friend naming one of the people thought to have been responsible for the 3am break-in.

Mr Collins returned to the shops on the Easterside estate, discovered where the suspect lived and when he saw him, recognised him from earlier.

He was directed to a Ford Mondeo car in which Jamie Garrens was sitting, and he handed back another games console and digital camera.

Garrens was arrested the following day, but denied being responsible for the break-in, saying he bought the equipment for £30 from the other male.

The 19-year-old later pleaded guilty to the burglary at the house in Marton Manor, and was yesterday jailed at Teesside Crown Court for two years.

Judge Peter Bowers warned that Garrens’s co-accused, who is so far denying the offence, will get three years if he is found guilty after a trial.

He told Garrens: “There are two good things to be said for you. Once you were challenged, you produced the goods and there was no ugly scene, and you had the good sense to plead guilty. If it had not been for Liam Collins, you might have got away with it.

He showed amazing courage and determination to follow you back to Easterside and then, having got some information on the grapevine, come back and confront you.”

The court heard how Garrens, of Shrewsbury Road, Middlesbrough, had been out of prison only hours before breaking in through a patio door.

Joan Smith, mitigating, said the teenager had been celebrating his release and became easily led in drink when a friend suggested the burglary.