Drug addict burglar Kevin Dunn is back behind bars after admitting breaking into 17 homes in and around Swindon.

As well as the spate of break-ins the 30-year-old heroin and crack cocaine user also burgled two commercial premises and stole from 38 parked cars.

But Dunn, who was jailed for five years in 2003, has been returned to prison after a judge imposed a four and half year jail term.

Claire Marlow, prosecuting, said the first of the burglaries took place in Sevenhampton on March 23 this year when the householder was on holiday.

A downstairs window was broken and the intruder carried out an untidy search of the house, making off with a 42-inch flat screen TV, a £2,500 watch and an iPod worth a total of £6,000.

Police went to the scene where they found three of Dunn's fingerprints on an envelope left on the floor.

When he was questioned he said he had been called by someone he owed money to and asked to help move a TV, which he did at the house to pay off the £95 debt.

Miss Marlow said the second break in was again at a village location on Beech Lea, Blunsdon. The householder went out between 2.30pm and 4.30pm on May 25, returning to find a spade had been stolen from a garden shed and used to force the patio doors.

The whole house had been searched with mainly jewellery to the value of about £3,000 being taken.

Again three of Dunn's fingerprints were recovered from a black bin liner taken from the utility room and left behind with DVDs in it.

A few days later a house on Briar Fields, Swindon, was broken into while the occupants were on holiday, taking £2,500 worth of mainly jewellery and electrical items.

He again left fingerprints on a bag and when he was questioned admitted all of the break ins and asked to be taken on a drive round by police to identify other offences, including 14 house burglaries.

Miss Marlow said Dunn was also caught on camera breaking into a police decoy car to steal a satellite navigation system.

He admitted taking a £300 Tom Tom sat nav from an Audi A4 in the Brunel North car park and told police he had stolen from a further 37 cars.

Dunn, of Derby Court, Walcot, pleaded guilty to three burglaries and two thefts and asked for 53 further offences to be taken into consideration.

The court was told he was jailed for five years in January 2003 for burglary and theft from vehicles.

Paul Orton, defending, said his client offended to fund his drug habit and asked the court to impose a drug rehabilitation requirement.

The court was told that he had a heavy heroin addiction and a lesser crack cocaine habit and had been offending to fund those problems.

He said also when he was in custody he helped police recover a laptop computer containing a bereaved family's photographs, which had been taken in a burglary.

Mr Orton said his client had no part in taking the machine but made some phone calls to other criminals and got the property back undamaged.

His girlfriend Rebecca Renicks told the court that Dunn could live with her and she would throw him out if he returned to drugs.

Jailing him Judge Douglas Field said: "Your offending behaviour has been linked to your lifestyle of choice. It is nobody else's fault but yours."

He added: "I am afraid I must tell you that it is unrealistic for me to consider a non custodial sentence; the public have to be protected from this sort of offending. T "The circumstance when you don't offend is when you are in custody."