Jail bird's crime spree lands him back behind bars (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Jail bird's Middlesbrough crime spree lands him back behind bars

2:32pm Thursday 21st March 2013 in News By Neil Hunter

A JAIL-BIRD who went on a crime-spree just hours after being released from his latest prison sentence is back behind bars.

Stewart Wright broke into two offices and stole from a parked car during his night-time rampage in the centre of Middlesbrough.

The 35-year-old was high on pills after feeling under pressure to look after his ill father and brother, Teesside Crown Court heard.

He said that he planned to sell whatever he stole - a printer-copier, wine, CDs and medication - to get money for his family.

The spree last month started just two days after he was freed from jail for burglary and theft, said prosecutor Rachel Masters.

Wright has appeared in court 85 times since he was a schoolboy - and faced ten separate prosecutions in the last year alone.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told him: "I have to decide whether you need to be locked up just to keep you out of circulation.

"It is a question of whether or not you are someone I can give a chance to, but then I look at your record for 2012.

"Throughout that year, when at liberty, you were committing offences on a regular and persistent basis.

"You are not someone I feel confident in giving a chance to for that very reason. Here you are committing offences within days.

"Until such time you are taken in hand and your many problems are sorted out, the likelihood is you will continue.

"I appreciate that on your release you will be back at square one, but until reality dawns on you, that's going to be the position."

Umza Khan, mitigating, said Wright as soon as Wright was freed from prison his brother told him his father had had a stroke.

She said he then had to look after both relatives while he was being ordered to live in a bail hostel and could not cope.

Wright concedes he has an "appalling" record, added Miss Khan, but his father's illness has shocked him into changing his ways.

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