A REPEAT thief who has again been caught stealing charity boxes from shops has been jailed for 14 months.

Stuart Webb has admitted taking collections tins on at least two earlier occasions in his 86 previous convictions for theft.

The 28-year-old went on a theft that 'was clearly planned, or shoplifting for order,' when he cleared a supermarket shelf of 14 bottles of spirits.

Chris Smyth, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court how on November 15 staff at Co-op noticed a large unexpected gap on the alcohol shelf.

When they looked at CCTV they saw a man sweeping the bottles, worth £280, from the display and putting them under his jacket and leaving.

Just over two weeks later he was back at the Mill Street store, where he was seen on security footage to take up to £100 worth of meat and again put it in his coat.

In the middle of the night two days later, on December 5, the alarm went off at Boots in the town after a window was smashed.

The intruder cleaned a shelf of razors, worth £302.96 and charity tins for Macmillan Cancer Care and Children in Need.

Webb, formerly of Ridgemead, Calne, but now of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and one of burglary.

At the time of the offending he was on a community order imposed for breaking into a youth centre in March last year and stealing a games console.

He was also on post-sentence supervision having been jailed for breaking into the Co-op and the office of a holiday centre.

In 2011 he stole two Poppy Day tins from a garage on Armistice Day and in 2015 pinched two charity boxes from Domino's on The Pippin.

Adetutu Sofowora, defending, asked the court to give her client one last chance to get help for his problems in the community.

Jailing him Judge Robert Pawson said "Mr Webb, you are 31. It is obvious when I read your police record that you have intermittently been in the grip of drug addiction and that is the cause of your offending.

"I understand that you want a last chance. I can't in conscience, logic or law give you one last chance today. It was clearly planned, or shoplifting for order."