A TEENAGER who was caught in a garage attached to a home told the householder he was hungry and homeless – even though he lived around the corner.

Jesse Cookson, 19, had sneaked under a garage door in the early hours on November 18 as he again went out looking for things to steal during a spate of thefts in November last year.

But after he admitted a string of break-ins, a judge at Swindon Crown Court jailed him for a year and ten months.

Charles Thomas, prosecuting, said the first bout of offending took place in Lawn on November 11 into the following morning.

He said the defendant was seen entering from garden to garden during the night and police were called to the area where he was found with four bottles of Stella Artois.

When a nearby householder checked his garage he found lager had come from there and a neighbour’s CCTV showed Cookson trying his front door.

He had also broken into a garden shed in nearby Bruddel Grove, taking a strimmer, and a summer house in Brecon Close, stealing a mobile phone and iPod.

A week later, householder in Norris Close, Chiseldon, was up at 3am to get things ready for her husband going to work early.

When she went downstairs she heard noises in the garage and looked in to see a man with a torch.

“She got her husband who confronted the man in the garage. There was a confrontation and a struggle between them,” Mr Thomas said.

“The defendant tried to get under the garage door which was 3ft from the ground. He was held by the husband before the police arrived.

“He said: ‘I’m only looking for food. I’m homeless’, though it would appear he was living relatively nearby with his mother.

“He said to police he was looking for somewhere to keep warm because he had been kicked out. He said he did not have any intention to steal.”

Cookson, of The Crescent, Chiseldon, admitted four burglaries and one attempted burglary.

The court heard that almost exactly a year earlier he committed another dwelling house burglary and was put on a community order.

Gareth James, defending, said: “He is a young man who has real issues with accommodation and has been effectively homeless for some period of time."

“His mother, who lives fairly close by to the offence, lets him stay time to time but not permanently.”

He said he generally stole from outbuildings and never items of high value but things he thinks he may be able to sell.

Jailing him, Judge Tim Mousley QC said: “You were going out at night intent on stealing items of low value from the outbuildings of people’s homes, some times connected with their homes and on one occasion trying the front door to see you could get in and you had with you a ready excuse to give if you got caught.”