A TEENAGE offender who absconded from a working party just days before his release date faces a bleak Christmas behind bars.

Lee Smith, from Rotherham, gave himself up last night just hours after he escaped from a working party with fellow inmate Terry Armstrong.

The pair spent more than three hours on the run from HM Deerbolt Young Offenders' Institution, near Barnard Castle, after giving the officer in charge of the group of inmates the slip, at 3pm.

The two 19-year-olds had been planting daffodil bulbs outside the grounds of Deerbolt when they made an escape for freedom towards nearby Deepdale Wood, near the village of Startforth.

The prison officer immediately alerted Deerbolt and the police and a search was launched around the Barnard Castle area, involving a police dog unit and a spotter plane.

The escapees were spotted in the Harmire Road area of the town at about 6pm last night, and Smith immediately gave himself up to officers.

Armstrong made off on foot, but was spotted minutes later by a police plane's search lights, and was eventually caught at about 6.25pm.

Smith, who is serving a 33-month sentence for theft, was due to be released from Deerbolt on November 29, but he now faces a longer sentence.

Armstrong, from Liverpool, is serving a two-year sentence for robbery and was due to be released on January 1. He will also face a longer sentence.

Tony Galley, principal officer of Deerbolt, said: "It was a stupid thing to do, a decision which was made on the spur of the moment, and one they are now deeply regretting.

"It is just madness to think that they had just weeks to go before their release and now they will undoubtedly be facing longer sentences."

He added that both inmates, from the prison's E-wing, had been thoroughly risk assessed before they were allowed on to the working party.