A TEENAGER who went shop breaking after escaping from jail is back behind bars - and a judge told him he was better off there.

Christopher Daniel Sparks, 19, attacked two takeaway premises in Rossendale and was brought to book after being chased and arrested in a river nearby.

Sentencing the defendant who was free for more than a month, Judge Christopher Cornwall told him an added term of custody must follow and an ear ly release date was not the issue.

The judge went on:"You are better off where you are at the present time."

Sparks, of Derwent Close, Haslingden, was given nine months to be served after his original 15 month sentence, imposed last November for two counts of affray, ends in August. The defendant had admitted burglary allegations and failing to surrender and had been committed for sentence by magistrates.

Keith Thomas, prosecuting at Burnley Crown Court, said Sparks, who struck twice at a Rossendale club, committed two burglaries while on the run from detention. One raid at an Indian takeaway in Stacksteads, was committed days before Sparks was sent to custody.

Sparks escaped from Thorn Cross jail last Dec 16 and was arrested on January 20. In the meantime, he had taken cash from a pizza shop in Waterfoot and broken into another takeaway in the town.

Martin Hackett, defending, said Sparks, currently at Lancaster Farms Young Offenders' Institution, accepted he would get a custodial term which would extend beyond his current earliest release date.