A SERIAL shoplifter with a 'dreadful record' has been jailed for threatening a security guard while trying to steal two bottles of Jack Daniel's.

Michael Riley cut the security tags off the whiskey bottles before trying to leave Asda in Stockton with the spirit hidden in his clothing.

A security guard recognised Riley as a shoplifter who had stolen two other bottles of the American bourbon five days earlier and confronted him.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Riley became threatening and was holding a three inch metal spike in his hand when the security guard approached him just before 10pm on November 30 last year.

Jon Harley, prosecuting, said: "The security guard noticed a three inch red coloured spike, he said the defendant looked menacing and was determined to get past and said 'get out of the f***ing way'.

"The guard sensibly got out of the way and let Mr Riley leave before calling the police."

In a victim impact statement, the security guard said: "I could have lost my life over a bottle of whiskey. This is the fifth incident of this nature when I have been fearful for my and my colleagues' safety."

Riley, of Moore Street, Blackpool, pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour with an offensive weapon, common assault and two charges of shoplifting.

In mitigation, Nicci Horton said the defendant had managed to stay out of trouble for a number of years until he fell back into the grip of heroin addiction.

Urging the judge to give him a suspended sentence, she said: "He would love to get the help to get clean again."

Judge Stephen Ashurst jailed him for 15 months.

He said: "Your record speaks for itself; it is dreadful; you have already racked up 180 offences, mainly ones of shoplifting.

"It may well have been to feed a habit over the years and you have been given a number of sentences, including conditional discharges, fines, suspended sentences and depressing plenty of short prison sentences after short prison sentence."