A cornered burglar threatened to stab a guesthouse owner who chased him down the street to reclaim a stolen television set.

Stephen Foster, proprietor of the St Raphael Guesthouse, Queen Anne's Road, York, pursued the man after his wife, Janet, spotted him leaving with the set.

She said: "He just walked straight through the front door but we thought he was one of the guests coming back.

"Then we saw him going out with something over his shoulder so I went upstairs and looked in the bedroom and shouted down to my husband.

"He'd completely ransacked the room, the doors were open, the iron was off the wall, the bed was messed up and he'd used the toilet.

"So Stephen went out the front and down a back alley and caught him at the end of the street.

Mr Foster said: "I confronted him in a back alley and I grabbed hold of him and pushed him up against the wall and got the TV back off him.

"He threatened to stab me and put his hand in his pocket.

"I don't know if he had a knife but I thought, it's not worth getting stabbed over a TV set, so I let him go and he ran off."

The Fosters are now reviewing their security arrangements.

Mrs Foster said: "We just couldn't believe the barefaced cheek of it."

A spokesman for York police said they were looking for a white male in his late teens to early 20s between 5ft 10in and 5ft 11in wearing a stone-coloured jacket.

He said: "He is thought to have run off towards the Westminster Road area and the river."

Anyone with any information is asked to telephone York Police on 01904 631321.