A MAN who had been away for several days returned home to find a burglar in his flat.

David Meehan called police on his mobile phone and they found John Lambert hiding in a shower cubicle, a court heard yesterday.

The defendant claimed that a credit card in the name of Meehan and a set of keys had been wrongly put through his letter box and that he had gone to give it back to him.

He then decided to go into the house to find confidential information so he could use the card.

Lambert, aged 20, of Ramsay Avenue, Farnworth, appeared at Bolton Crown Court yesterday for sentencing.

Prosecutor Christopher Allan said that Mr Meehan's parents had been staying at his flat. On leaving, they had put the keys to the flat in an envelope inside his locked mailbox.

But when he returned, Mr Meehan found the keys were missing.

Sentencing Lambert to 17 months in a Young Offenders' Institution, Judge Martin Steiger QC said: "It is quite inconceivable that Mr Meehan's parents had put the keys through the defendant's letterbox."