A TEENAGE Hereford girl who was locked up for the theft of a bottle of lager has been freed by a recorder at Worcester Crown Court on appeal.

Natasha Bowley, aged 18, stole the drink from a Hereford store while addicted to alcohol.

The theft, which she admitted, breached a conditional discharge for criminal damage, said Lee Marklew, for the Crown.

Hereford magistrates gave her a four-month detention and training order on May 22.

But on her ninth day in custody, Recorder Andrew Hearn allowed her appeal against the sentence.

Quashing the detention, he imposed a 12-month community order instead, with 40 hours of unpaid community work.

He told Bowley, of Green Croft, Hereford, that he was worried about her past record which the magistrates were "clearly right to take into account".

But he hoped her life could get back on track after hearing she had been receiving professional help to beat alcohol abuse.

Mr Marklew said on March 21 this year Bowley went shoplifting with a youth, who stole two bottles of lager.

Both were stopped outside the store. At the time, she was on bail for being drunk and disorderly at Hereford hospital, where she screamed abuse at staff.

A month earlier, she had been given the conditional discharge for causing £106 damage to windows after being dared by friends, said Mr Marklew.

Her police record, which dated back to the time she was 15, included battery, handling stolen goods and causing a nuisance on school premises.

Tom Challinor, defending, said she had found custody very difficult to cope with and was determined to change her ways.

The sentence had been too harsh for unsophisticated, impulsive crimes when she was only 17.

Mr Challinor said she hoped to begin a college course in the future which provided the motivation to overcome her alcohol problem.