A drug addict who tried to make a break for freedom from court has been jailed.

Thomas Fox got no further than the locked double doors at the back of Swindon Magistrates Court.

The 32-year-old was being escorted back to the dock by security officers after giving evidence from the far side of the court when he gave his prison guards the slip. He was in court in August to face a variety of burglary and motoring charges.

After storming through the first door he was brought to a halt by the locked door and the security guards managed to restrain him.

Fox, who was sentenced at Swindon Crown Court admitted two burglaries, an attempted burglary, escape from lawful custody, driving while disqualified and other motoring matters. He also asked for three further counts of burglary to be taken into consideration. He was on both probation and licence from a previous prison term at the time of the offences.

Jonathan Stanniland, prosecuting, said four of the burglaries were walk-in thefts where he entered the staff areas of shops and took bags or cash boxes.

After one of these raids, at Rent- A-Car, he said Fox was chased from the scene and dropped a bag which had his DSS book, leading to his capture.

In interviews with police he said he could remember little of the thefts because of the amount of heroin he was taking at the time.

Mr Stanniland said the most serious offence took place on August 1 when Fox broke into a house on Melbourne Close in the Lawns.

He said: "He smashed a rear glass door and several rooms were searched before a suit and a cash box were stolen. The cash box had birth certificates, passports and some first day covers which one of the family was collecting among other things.

"He was cut during the burglary, probably on the broken glass in the door and left bloodied finger marks inside the house."

He said Fox had a long record of previous convictions including other burglaries of houses as well as commercial property and a robbery in 1994 for which he was sentenced to five years in custody.

Defending himself Fox, of Grasmere, Liden, said all he could put forward in mitigation were the papers he had earned on a detox course while in custody on remand.

He said "I am up for a couple of burglaries and I don't deny that I did them. But I didn't take TVs and videos or search houses, I'm not really a burglar. I just went in and got enough to get my next fix and that was it.

"I'm not saying this because I'm looking for leniency but I think there should be a longer time for drug rehabilitation because that course lasted just four weeks."

Sentencing him for a total of two years and nine months in prison Judge Paul Barclay commented that Fox had made great progress while on remand.

He declined to return him to jail to serve for more than four months of the unserved time from a previous two year prison term.