A burglar was caught four years after he broke into a house because he left a cigarette butt at the scene.

Mohamed Monem thought he had got away with the break-in, which he helped commit at a house in Hove.

He and others escaped with property worth £2,000 from the home in Princes Crescent in 1998.

A court heard yesterday that he left a vital clue - his DNA on a cigarette he smoked during the burglary.

Monem, 21, might have got away with it if he had not been arrested in May for being drunk and disorderly.

Samples of DNA are now automatically taken from all people arrested on suspicion of committing a crime.

A check was carried out to see if Monem's DNA matched any taken at crime scenes.

It almost exactly matched that obtained from the cigarette he had thrown away four years earlier.

John Collins, prosecuting, said: "The chances of it not being the right match were one in a billion.

"Faced with that evidence, he pleaded guilty."

Monem was given a 150 hour community punishment order when he appeared for sentence in May.

Hove Crown Court heard yesterday that Monem, of Aymer Road, Hove, had only completed 30 hours of the order and had twice failed to carry out work assigned to him.

He admitted two breaches of the order, for which he will have to complete an extra 30 hours to those already imposed.

Ahmed Hussein, defending, said: "His step-father had been ill and there was a lot of stress at home.

"His mother paid for him to go to Spain to allow things to calm down and they both tried to contact the probation service to tell them what happened.

"Their messages were not answered.

"He is now back home, helping out in the family business when needed and his step-father has now left. He wants to complete the community punishment order."