A drug addict responsible for a one-man crime wave across Sussex has dodged a jail sentence - because a judge said prison could not stop him.

Anthony Bowles has spent most of the last ten years inside for stealing and breaking into people's homes to feed his habit.

He faced a minimum mandatory sentence of three years behind bars but instead the 28-year-old was told he will receive help to beat his addiction.

Bowles, who yesterday admitted six charges of fraud and three burglaries, had even continued to offend when he was locked up in 2007 Angela Morris, prosecuting, told Hove Crown Court how the repeat offender made unauthorised telephone transfers of £7,750 from another inmate’s account, which he then got friends on the outside to collect for him.

The 28-year-old also admitted taking £200 from a fruit machine at The Crown pub in Lewes in October last year Two months later he bit Glen Redmond on the arm after he was caught breaking into his home in Dorset Road, Lewes.

Then in January this year police spotted him and another man on the driveway of a house in Sidney Road, Haywards Heath.

Jewellery taken from the raid was found next to him when he was stopped and DNA evidence linked him to the earlier burglaries.

Jennifer Gray, defending, said Bowles had received “nothing but” prison sentences since he was 18 and has now written to all of his victims.

Judge David Rennie told him he would undergo a two months detox in a residential unit run by Brighton Housing Trust, attend Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions and would be supervised for up to 18 months.

He said: “You have a dreadful record and for the last ten years each time you have offended you have been sent to prison for increasingly long periods.

“It is very expensive for the public purse, it hasn't worked and the cycle seems set to continue for as long as drug addiction is part of your daily life.

“The law requires me to send you to prison once again for a minimum of three years in order to protect people.

“You would be released from prison in the not too distant future and before too long would again be in the grip of your addiction and inside someone else's house.

“I have to consider not only your past victims but potential future victims.

“A package of expert help has now been put in place to help you with your addiction.

“I am going to take responsibility for giving you that chance.

“If it works the risk of you further offending will diminish and we will all benefit.”

Bowles, of London Road, Horam, near Heathfield, was given a three year supervised community order with a requirement to undergo residential rehabilitation.