HEROIN addict Barry Middleton has been jailed for five years and three months after admitting more than 60 burglaries.

Swindon Crown Court was told last week the 23-year-old struck at night while residents were asleep, and took cash, bank cards and any item he could sell.

Middleton, who used to live in Trowbridge, carried out most of the raids in Calne and Chippenham.

Nick Hawkins, prosecuting, said the first two raids took place in Oxford Road, Calne, on July 18 this year.

At the first house a video camera and champagne were stolen and at the second a purse and cash were taken.

Mr Hawkins said a few nights later Middleton raided a house in Stockley Lane, Calne, making off with a digital camera, champagne, radio controlled cars and other items. On the same night he took three bank cards from a house in North Street, Calne.

He was arrested but released on bail. At the end of August, Middleton broke into a car parked outside a house in North Street, taking a stereo and the house keys.

Mr Hawkins said: "He used the keys to get into the house but was disturbed by the dog. The householder went down to find the front door unlocked. Nothing was taken.

"The following night he broke into a house in Bryans Close Road and made off with £200 and a set of keys while the occupants were in bed."

Mr Hawkins said early in September Middleton stole a Ford Sierra from Chippenham Accident Repair Centre.

When Middleton appeared at North Wiltshire Magistrates Court in Chippenham, he tried to escape by jumping from the dock.

Mr Hawkins said that of the 59 offences Middleton had asked to be taken into consideration, the majority were burglaries and most were on domestic premises.

Middleton pleaded guilty to seven burglaries, one attempted burglary, two thefts, possessing heroin and escape from custody.

Peter Codner, defending, said Middleton had managed to get himself on the straight and narrow and stopped taking heroin, but he had fallen back to his old ways and committed the offences.

"He accepts he has to go to prison and that it is not going to be for a short time.

"All the offending before had been relatively minor but largely car orientated, but after getting back on heroin he ran up a debt of £2,000 to a dealer who at one point threatened him with a gun. He needed to feed his addiction and satisfy the man who had threatened him."

Mr Codner said Middleton wanted to make a clean breast of things by admitting all his offences, some of which would not have been detected.

Jailing him for five years for the burglaries, with three consecutive monthsfor the escape, Judge John McNaught said: "It is terribly terribly distressing for people to have their houses invaded and things which they saved up for and cherished, stolen. You have done it dozens of times. You have been the equivalent of a crime wave for Wiltshire."