A YORK drug addict who took part in a house raid in which shotguns were stolen has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.

York Crown Court heard that Derek Gavin Smith, 25, was responsible for eight burglaries and 13 other offences during a three-month crimewave in and around the city in the spring.

The loot from the raids totalled several thousand pounds.

Smith, of St Phillip's Grove, Clifton, pleaded guilty to house burglaries at Shipton-by-Beningbrough and Overton, and in Goodwood Grove, Breary Close and Nelson's Lane, all off Tadcaster Road, York; two deceptions using a credit card stolen in one of the raids; attempting to snatch a woman's handbag from her; two offences of possessing small amounts of cannabis; and one of possessing a small amount of heroin. He asked for seven more deceptions and three more burglaries to be taken into consideration.

Passing a five-and-a-half year prison sentence, Judge James Spencer QC called it "quite an appalling catalogue of offending."

He accepted Smith's claim that he had tried to dissuade his accomplices in the Shipton-by-Beningbrough raid from taking three shotguns and ammunition.

Prosecution barrister Paul Williams outlined how jewellery and other items were taken in the raids and a bottle of milk was taken from Nelson's Lane.

For Smith, Nigel Soppitt said he had not taken the guns himself and had not known they were in the Shipton-by-Beningbrough house when he arrived there. He had gone straight when he was released from prison in March 2000 and earned "reasonable money" as a labourer.

But when he lost that job in November 2001, he started meeting old acquaintances again, resumed his former drug habit and his life had gone in a downward spiral. The crimes had been to fund that habit.

Updated: 12:15 Saturday, September 14, 2002