A MAN who repeatedly breached his suspended sentence order has been jailed for 45 weeks.

Last year, Kirk Birdsall, of Gurney Street, Darlington, was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, for common assault.

He breached it a number of times, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Rachel Masters said these included the theft of £27 worth of items from a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Darlington on January 26 this year, and another theft on February 21 this year of £12.76 worth of goods from the town’s Wilkinsons store.

The court heard he also stole an iPad Mini from a girl he met on a night out on May 4, as well as a t-shirt worth £16.99 from TK Maxx in Darlington last October.

Ms Masters said the 26-year-old has 27 previous convictions, and since 2010, many of these have been shop thefts.

Jonathan Walker, mitigating, said Birdsall had recently started work as an apprentice with a firm of painters and decorators.

He said: “The company are happy with his performance so far.”

Sentencing him to 45 weeks in custody, Judge Howard Crowson, who imposed Birdsall’s suspended sentence last September, said: “We have met each other far too many times.

“I told you I would lock you up, and I am going to do it. You have pulled your life together in recent times, but it is too little, too late.”