A would-be burglar has been jailed after he was caught trying to steal scrap metal to feed his heroin habit.
Lee Smith, 21, was jailed for six months after admitting two charges of attempted burglary at Hull Crown Court yesterday.
He was seen by a security guard trying to prise open boarded-up windows in buildings in Palace Avenue and Beck Hill, Bridlington.
Richard Thompson, prosecuting, said: "The security guard heard noises coming from the rear of empty houses in Beck Hill and saw the defendant trying to press an implement into the wood boarding up the property.
"He startled the defendant, who left but was then seen in the rear yard of a house in Palace Avenue, bending down near a door."
Smith was arrested near the scene and found with a spanner in his hand.
He was also charged with an earlier offence of criminal damage at the Woldgate Caravan Park for smashing up a communal facility with a sledge hammer.
In mitigation, Paul Norton said he was in search of scrap metal to sell for heroin after discovering his grandfather had a terminal illness.
He said before the offence he had stayed out of trouble for four years after leaving the "quite appalling" family background.
He was jailed for six months for burglary, to run concurrently with a one-month sentence for failing to surrender to court.
• Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
• Crime news for Hull and East Yorkshire
