Lindsay Lohan has been released from house arrest after spending 35 days detained at her Los Angeles apartment for stealing a gold necklace.

The 24-year-old Mean Girls actress was sentenced in May to 120 days in prison, but was later offered a shorter period of house arrest.

She qualified for this under a programme for non-violent offenders, which is aimed at reducing overcrowding in jails in the Los Angeles area.

Lohan pleaded "no contest" in May - which means a defendant neither admits or disputes a charge and pleads neither "guilty" or "not guilty", but accepts a punishment given by the court.

She was accused of taking the £1,550 necklace from a boutique near her home in the Venice Beach area of LA.

She had walked out of the store wearing the jewellery.

Her once promising Hollywood career has derailed because of repeated run-ins with the law and trips to rehabilitation to deal with drug and alcohol problems.

She had been due to play porn star turned women's rights campaigner Linda Lovelace in the film Inferno.

Critics thought that would have been her perfect comeback, but she lost the role when a period in rehab clashed with filming.

Nevertheless, Lohan is due to start working on a movie about New York crime boss John Gotti later this year which co-stars John Travolta and Al Pacino.

And she has been offered the role of Sharon Tate in Eyes Of A Dream - an upcoming movie about 1960s serial killer Charles Manson.

Tate, the actress wife of Roman Polanski, was eight months pregnant when she was murdered by Manson's followers.