A TEENAGE burglar cost a newsagent nearly £7,000 when he targeted the shop three times in just over a week, York Youth Court heard.

Holgate Bridge Newsagents, York, had to repeatedly replace its windows after night-time cigarette raids by the 17-year-old.

Prosecutor Vivienne Walsh said that in total, between August 17 and August 25, when he was caught, the teenager got away with £550-worth of cigarettes.

But he also caused £4,427-worth of damage, and cost the newsagent £1,500 in lost trade because the windows were boarded up.

The 17-year-old from west York pleaded guilty to two burglaries and asked for a third to be taken into consideration. He said he was sorry for committing the offences.

Youth justices put him under a three-month nightly curfew and on a nine-month supervision order aimed at tackling his alcoholism.

His mother told the court that a pub near where they lived had been selling her son alcohol, although staff there knew he was under-age.

The youth was now barred from the pub and she refused to let him drink at home.

The youth's solicitor, Helen Morris, said he had already spent a week on the streets when his mother threw him out for drinking at home.

But he was now living at home, was changing his behaviour and had got a job. He had committed the burglaries under the influence of an adult relative who had got the youth drunk and then persuaded him to do the raids for him.

The family had had difficulties because word had got about in the local community that the youth was responsible for the burglaries.

Updated: 11:03 Wednesday, September 17, 2003