A DRUG user was caught driving a Mitsubishi Outlander 50 miles from where it was stolen in a York burglary, a court heard.

John Michael Kirk, 46, was using the vehicle to go to a Darlington chemist's within hours of it being taken from a driveway in Huntington Road, York, said Beth Richardson, prosecuting. It was worth about £10,000.

But police were on the look-out because it had been reported stolen and he was arrested. In the car were a mobile phone and everything else stolen in the burglary. He had 228 previous convictions, most of them for dishonesty including burglary and 13 for handling stolen goods.

Kirk, of Borough Road, Darlington, pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods.

"You are someone with an utterly shocking record," the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told him. at York Crown Court "You are a prolific burglar, thief and handler of stolen goods."

He jailed Kirk for two and a half years. Kirk was on parole at the time from a previous sentence. Since being released partway through a four-year prison sentence imposed at Teesside Crown Court in 2012 for burglary, he had broken his parole conditions eight times. He was also subject to a community order when he was arrested. He has since been recalled to serve the remainder of the four-year sentence.

His solicitor advocate Stephen Andrews said he had "been between addresses" at the time, so when someone had offered him the use of the car so he could drive into Darlington to pick up a methadone prescription he had accepted it.

"It was a foolish decision," said the lawyer.

Kirk had a history of drug abuse, though he was currently not taking drugs and hoped, on his release from prison, to put crime behind him.

Miss Richardson said all the items stolen in the burglary had been returned to the house which had been raided when its owners had been on holiday but a relative had been sleeping in it.