A KIND-HEARTED York man has gone out of his way to reunite an expensive guitar with its owner after finding it in a street at a time when he was homeless and broke.

Jason Flanagan stumbled upon the Lowden acoustic guitar in a case on Balfour Street, near Water End, at about 3am one morning recently when he was walking back to a friend's house after finishing work at pub in York city centre, where he is a barman.

The 31-year-old, who is also a musician and plays the guitar himself, said the case containing the guitar was half on a pavement and half on the road. He decided it would be best to take it with him rather than leave it in the street.

Jason had no money and was sleeping on friends' sofas at that point, but who now lives in shared accommodation in Huntington.

He explained: "It was dead at that time. I had just finished a work shift. The second I spotted it, it started to snow. I remember that vividly.

"I was really struggling for money at the time. I thought this was a sign from the gods that I had come across this guitar.

"I knew it would be a decent guitar. It was in a heavy duty case. I decided to take it with me so it didn't fall into the wrong hands."

He looked inside the case the next day and realised that it was a valuable acoustic guitar.

"I could tell it was beautifully crafted," he said.

He did some research about the guitar online and found out it was worth about £3,800 new, and around £3,000 second hand.

In a bid to find its owner, he wrote an appeal on Facebook. But just a few days after finding the guitar, one of Jason's friends who lives on Leeman Road and knew he had found a guitar, contacted him to say she had received a leaflet through the post about a guitar that had been lost.

The leaflet had a picture of the guitar, and it appeared to be the same one that Jason had found. It also had contact details for the owner of the guitar, Jonny Neaves.

Jason messaged him on Facebook to say he had found a guitar and asked him to explain what was inside the case to make sure he was the owner.

"There was a post-it note inside saying 'I love you'," Jason said.

"When he messaged back he described in detail what was in the case, including the make of the guitar and post-it note."

Jason agreed to meet up with Jonny to give him his guitar.

"He couldn't have been a more down to Earth guy, which made me feel even better to return the guitar to him," Jason added.

"He said he had saved up for three years for it.

"I felt really happy that I managed to get it back to him. I had an expensive guitar myself worth about £1,000, which was nowhere near as much as his, and I never let it out of my sight. I thought imagine if I lost that, I would want someone to do the same thing I did.

"I could have put it on Ebay, but money wasn't the point. The main thing was putting myself in his shoes."

Jonny, 29, who lives on Balfour Street, said he was "fairly certain" that he would never see his guitar again.

He commented: "I reported it to the police. I didn't hear anything. Nothing had been posted on Ebay or Gumtree. I thought someone had took it and kept it.

"It's really nice of Jason to do the decent thing. It's nice to know there are decent people out there."

He said he would have been "devastated" if he had lost it.

Jonny, who is a teacher at Queen Ethelburga's school near York, left the guitar and case in the street when he was unpacking after a gig.

He said: "I'd got my car unpacked, then given my girlfriend the keys to the house to let herself in. She did, then went in with them, so I ran after her to get them back so I could lock my car, leaving the guitar outside. When we went in, we found that our boiler had leaked all over the kitchen, and in the scramble to mop it up, the guitar got left out there."