A CAREER burglar, given day release from prison, went on the run and stole from more than 50 homes.

Shane Jarvis carried out 56 distraction burglaries during a few weeks last summer after being released on licence from Dartmoor prison.

Jarvis, 37, even returned to the home of a victim in Cricklade who he burgled five years before.

At Swindon Crown Court yesterday he was sentenced to six years in prison Lynne Henderson, prosecuting, told the court Jarvis left Dartmoor prison at 9am on June 2 last year.

By 7pm the following evening he was knocking on the door of a 72-year-old woman's bungalow in Salisbury where he stole her purse.

On July 2 he went to an 81-year-old's house in Saxon Close, Cricklade, which he had stolen from in the past. He said he was from the housing association which owned the property and stole a bag.

The same day he took a 78-year-old's handbag in Gloucester.

He used the same patter to get into her home but he left a fingerprint behind. Jarvis, pictured, of no fixed address, admitted six counts of burglary and asked for a further 50 matters to be taken into consideration.

The burglaries took place across the south of England, including in Swindon, Purton, and Devizes.

The court heard he had been jailed for seven years in 2003 after admitting seven burglaries and asking for another 51 to be taken into consideration.

Nick Fridd, defending, said his client had absconded from day release from prison as he approached the end of his sentence.

He said the only mitigation he could put forwards was that no violence was threatened or used and his client admitted what he had done or many of the matters would never have been solved.

Judge David Smith QC said: "This is an appalling tale of preying on the elderly.

"One may say seven years didn't work before, it should be longer, but I feel I must restrain myself."

Jarvis was jailed for six years starting on July 4 when his existing sentence runs out and the £560 on him when he was arrested was ordered to be confiscated.