SERIAL shoplifter Richard Minahan's admission that heroin was the cause of his criminal career saved him from a first prison sentence yesterday.

When Minahan, 31, pleaded guilty at Harrogate Magistrates' Court to two theft charges and breach of a community rehabilitation order, it brought his convictions to 44, most of them for theft.

Geoffrey Rogers, mitigating, said Minahan - who has also been convicted of begging in a public place - had for many years refused to admit his heroin addiction.

''The fact that he has now come clean and admitted his problem means he is half way there, or at least moving in the right direction," said Mr Rogers.

Minahan, of Strawberry Dale Court, Harrogate, is now receiving help from the Harrogate Alcohol and Drugs Agency and was optimistic his desire to be placed in a rehabilitation unit would be met.

Michael Hammond, prosecuting, said Minahan and another man, who was now on the run, had taken a £14.99 bottle of whisky from a Marks & Spencer store and, a day after being bailed, had gone into a stationer's shop in Oxford Street.

There Minahan was seen stealing laminated pouches with another man.

Minahan was made subject to a 12-month drug treatment and testing order and ordered to pay £140 costs and £17.26 compensation.