ONE-man crimewave John Young has been jailed for 18 months after pleading guilty to almost 200 burglaries and thefts.

The 22-year-old cost the people of Swindon tens of thousands of pounds as he broke into business premises and stole from cars across the town.

A judge at the crown court heard that Young stole to fund his lifestyle of drink and drugs.

At an earlier hearing the thief had pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary and five of theft from cars but asked for 191 similar offences to be taken into consideration.

Young, who was picked up by police after a couple of the offences, decided to make a clean breast of things and confessed all, telling detectives about his crimes.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said: "Mr Young was arrested first when he was apprehended by the police stealing a car radio," he said.

"The police were alerted to his presence and that of another young man at about noon on May 21. They conducted a short operation in a car park near the North Star college.

"This defendant and another had broken into a number of cars and had various parts of a stereo. He was interviewed and admitted it.

"The next offence was the burglary of Remington Opticians in Milton Road on the night of Friday-Saturday June 7-8.

"It was a fairly basic offence as a huge lump of masonry was thrown through the window. Property stolen and damaged totalled £1,891.40.

"He was interviewed and admitted the offence, but said he could not remember it due to an addiction to drink and drugs.

"He was charged with the matter on July 15 and appeared before magistrates where he was remanded in custody. Thereafter everything that emerges is rather from his own lips."

Among the other burglaries was a night time raid on the Virgin Mega-store when 14 PlayStation games worth £249.86 were taken.

He also raided Bishop Longbotham and Bagnall solicitors' office taking two laptop computers, a camera and a dictaphone.

At Dixon's he took £1,000 worth of goods and £850 worth at Aqualine on Commercial Road. He also did £800 of damage and took £600 of goods from premises in Liden.

Rob Ross, defending, said: "This is a young man who, if you look at his record, has not been in court for a burglary apart from six years ago in the youth court when he got a supervision order.

"John Young has been using heroin since he came out of prison for that robbery. He had ridden a rollercoaster with heroin."