FRIENDS who broke into a house and stole £3,000 worth of goods after bingeing on drug Mcat have been jailed.

Chefs David Farrow and Phillip Wilks had both taken the former legal high mephedrone – which was reclassified as a class B drug in 2010 – before burgling the home in Sandbanks Road, Parkstone.

Farrow, of Northcote Road, was spending £600 every week buying the substance, while his co-accused had taken it repeatedly in the days leading up the offences this April.

They both pleaded guilty to burglary and making off without payment after filling a car with petrol.

Farrow had also admitted two further charges of taking a VW Golf without authority and using the car without insurance the following day.

Prosecuting, Tom Wright said the burglary was committed shortly after the pair drove the Golf off the forecourt of a petrol station without paying.

“They drove to a cul de sac,” he said.

“A neighbour noticed an unfamiliar car and two men. He began to take photographs and keep track of their activities.”

Farrow and Wilks, both 27, stole jewellery and electrical items from the house, much of which was later recovered by the police.

Mr Wright said: “When the victim was at the house with police officers at around 7pm that evening, she saw the Golf again.

“She noticed it because it is a quiet, residential street. She had seen the footage taken by a neighbour, and believed she recognised the men. She thought she saw one of the men inside the car smile at her in acknowledgement.”

Mitigating for Farrow, Nick Robinson said he had suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood which had led him to drug addiction.

“He said to me today: ‘I want to prove I can do something with my life,’” he said.

“Given what he was doing – misusing drugs – he didn’t have the capacity or ability to think through the consequences. The real culpability is his drugs use.”

Rufus Taylor, acting for Wilks, who is of no fixed abode, said: “My client had been using mephedrone for several days prior to these incidents.”

He added that Wilks had grown up in care homes, but had secured a good job as the head chef at restaurants including Harvester.

Sentencing the men to 16 months in prison each, Judge John Harrow at Bournemouth Crown Court said they had “similarly sad childhoods”.

“You were both heavily addicted to drugs,” he said.

“No doubt this offence was committed to fund that habit.”