THE drug-addict son of a former police officer, who raided the family home while his parents were on holiday, avoided a jail sentence yesterday.

Daniel James Catchpole, 21, had been remanded in custody by Harrogate magistrates on March 10 after he had pleaded guilty to burgling his family house in Anchor Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and stealing a gold sovereign and a half-sovereign on a gold rope chain belonging to his father, Stephen.

Catchpole, who had been living in a YMCA hostel in Water Skellgate, Ripon, after he left the family home last October, had been warned he may go to prison.

Yesterday after listening to mitigation from his solicitor, Andrew Tinning, the court imposed a one-year community rehabilitation order and told Catchpole to seek counselling for his drug problem.

Mr Tinning said it had never been the intention of Catchpole's father that his son would end up in custody when he reported the burglary.

He told the court: ''He simply wanted to bring him to his senses and was quite shocked to find his son spending three weeks in custody.

"He simply wants his son to get help."

Mr Tinning said Catchpole had used a key to get into the house and had pawned the items taken, worth £700, at shops in Leeds and York.

He said that with Catchpole's help, police had recovered the sovereign.