Jason Stannard, 27, broke into four houses while the occupants were asleep to steal property he hoped to sell to pay off drug debts.

On Friday, Stannard appeared at Ipswich Crown Court to be sentenced after pleading guilty to four offences of burglary, one of theft and one of handling stolen goods.

Stannard, of Mayfields, Lakenheath, also asked for three other offences of theft to be taken into consideration.

Prosecutor John Fenn said that Stannard had taken police officers on a tour to identify the scenes of the crimes.

Mr Fenn told the court how Stannard had burgled homes in Melbourne Drive, Hawk Way and Mousehold Way, Mildenhall, in late May.

The court was told that Stannard had a string of previous convictions dating back to 2004, including affray, theft, drug offences and criminal damage.

Mitigating, Katherine Moore said: "This is a young man who has had a not insignificant drugs problem. Unfortunately, it seems that this underpinned this pattern of offending."

Stannard had turned to drugs to help him deal with issues in his personal life, said Miss Moore.

Jailing him for 18 months, Judge Peter Thompson told Stannard that he accepted his offending had arisen from his drug addiction and debts with drug suppliers.

But Judge Thompson said they had been serious crimes, aggravated by the fact that the occupants of the four houes had been asleep when Stannard had broken in.

The judge told Stannard the 18-month jail sentence would be reduced by the 123 days he had already spent in prison awaiting sentence.