A professional burglar responsible for a string of break-ins has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Mark Burr, 38, of Elm Grove, Brighton, and a friend climbed through the open window of a house in Horsham Road, Cowfold, near Horsham, and stole jewellery, paintings and antiques worth £1,000.

But as Burr stuffed the items into a carrier bag and pillowcase, he suffered a glaucomic attack, a sudden sharp pain in his eye.

Lewes Crown Court heard Burr and his friend were spotted wandering along the road outside and the police were called.

Burr, who needed hospital treatment for his eye, told officers the pair had driven to Cowfold to "take the air" as his friend had only half a lung and his home had a smoky atmosphere.

He said they ran out of petrol and went to look for fuel in garden sheds but saw the window of a house open and were tempted.

But Judge Charles Kemp said: "It doesn't do him any good to tell this court he was looking for petrol when he has been in a lady's bedroom, opening her drawers and chucking her hats out the window."

Burr pleaded guilty to the burglary on September 3 and just days later he was jailed for three and a half years for another burglary committed in February.

Yesterday, Judge Kemp sentenced Burr, now an inmate at Highdown prison, Sutton, to another three-and-a-half year stretch, to run concurrently.

The court heard he had committed his first burglary as a youth and had 24 convictions for 63 offences, 53 of those burglary.

The judge told Burr, whose three-month-old baby lives in France: "You are a professional burglar.

"You have got to learn at age 38 that if that is the way you plan to deal with your life you will only get longer and longer periods in custody.

"Your wife has recently given birth to a baby boy and the more you do that the more of his life you are going to miss."

Much of Burr's criminal record was down to a drug addiction he had now beaten.