HOMELESS teenager Marc Aldridge has been jailed for 15 months after breaking in to the home of a couple while they were away on holiday.

The 18-year-old broke in after going to the building in Birch Street with a former lodger who was collecting her mail.

Nick Hawkins, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that the homeowners had gone to Devon leaving their daughter with the keys. She then loaned them to a girl who had lodged there, so she could collect her mail, who went to the house with Aldridge.

When the daughter went to check the house later in the week she found it had been broken into. The following day, the former lodger learned of the break-in and remembered hearing Aldridge and a friend talking about committing a burglary, so confronted him and told the owner's daughter.

Aldridge was arrested at a guest house in Sheppard Street and after admitting the offence was bailed. He later failed to surrender to that bail.

He was arrested three weeks later after a bag snatch in the West Swindon centre. Aldridge was with another youth who took a handbag from a shopper's trolley. Aldridge had some of her cigarettes and cash.

Mike Pulsford, defending, said his client, who admitted the offences, was an isolated young man who had lost contact with his family and drifted since being released from a Young Offenders Institution earlier this year. He had started to use heroin and found he had to offend to fund that habit.

He said Aldridge now wanted to stay clear of drugs and had broken in to the house to use it as shelter, not to burgle it.

Aldridge was jailed for a year for the burglary with three months consecutive for handling stolen goods.