A JUDGE was concerned to hear two men who absconded from Leyhill Open Prison were serving long sentences for serious violence.

Judge Michael Harington said at Gloucester Crown Courthe had not realised violent criminals who still had a lot of their sentence to serve would be placed in an open prison like Leyhill.

Toby Moir and Alan Goulding, of Cheltenham, had leaving Leyhill on Christmas Eve - ten months before the earliest possible release date from five-year jail sentences received at Gloucester Crown Court in April, 2003, for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

As a result of their "foolish" abscond their earliest release date had been put back from October this year until August next year, the judge was told.

Mary Harley, prosecuting, said the pair had left through a fire door. Staff found it open and did a roll call. The pair surrendered to police in Cheltenham on January 4 but had not committed any offences while at large.

Kanaan Siva, defending, told the judge the men were in an open prison at an early stage because they had been good prisoners.

"This stupidity means that instead of being eligible for parole after half their sentence in October this year they will have to serve two-thirds of their sentence, which means no release before August 2006.

"They have lost a lot more than they gained," he said.

"It was an opportunistic escape with no pre-planning - it was just a walk-out. "The reason they left was the pressure that was brought upon them to look after drugs coming into the prison. Neither of these men are drug-users but they were subjected to intimidation.

"They were at the end of their tether about this and they walked out."

He said they did not give themselves up sooner because it would have meant them being held in police cells over the holiday period.

Jailing the men for an extra four months each, Judge Harington told them there had to be a further prison term to show other inmates the consequences of absconding.