A NIGHT-TIME burglar with an "appalling record" was jailed for five-and-a-half years after raiding two houses near his Acomb home.

Jurors at York Crown Court convicted Alan Graham Potts, 35, of Kingsway West, York, of two charges of burglary and one of attempted burglary, and the father-of-three was sent down for five-and-a-half years.

Judge Paul Hoffman also ordered him to serve an extra 106 days behind bars because he committed the offence while on licence - only 11 weeks after being released from prison for a previous offence.

"You are a thoroughly dishonest man and you plainly commit crime whenever you get an opportunity to do so," he told Potts.

"You have got an appalling record and you are certainly no stranger to burglary. You have served very long stretches - four years for robbery and four years for burglary, and you were on licence when you committed these offences."

Potts, who was previously convicted for burglary at Doncaster Crown Court on October 2001 and July 2005, burgled the homes in Hamilton Drive and Lindley Street in the early hours of January 23.

Prosecution barrister Matthew Harding told the court how Michelle Jenkins saw a man trying her front door in Nursery Drive, Holgate, at 4.10am.

He didn't get inside, and when she saw him go up to three other houses and try their front doors, she called police.

About ten or 15 minutes later, two police officers saw a man in the area and gave chase. But one officer injured himself and the man got away. Shortly afterwards, other officers nearby in Hamilton Drive stopped Potts, just after he threw something into a nearby garden.

They found foreign banknotes stolen in a raid on a house in Hamilton Drive on him and in the garden, a camera stolen from a house in Lindley Street, Holgate, a screwdriver and a torch.

Potts, giving evidence, claimed he had been at home with his partner and 17-month-old daughter asleep until a friend he met when in prison rang him, offering to sell a camera.

He said he met the friend outside a pub near a police station and bought the digital camera for £10. He said the friend also wanted to get rid of some foreign banknotes, so he agreed to take them as well.

But Judge Hoffman told him: "The jury has convicted you on the clearest possible evidence. You tried to pull the wool over their eyes with a risible account, which no person could have come anywhere near believing."