A BURGLAR who smashed his way in to two Boscombe shops and committed 29 other offences has been jailed.

Gary Newman, known as Gary Holness, was sentenced for two burglaries and a fraud offence, and asked for 28 other offences to be taken into consideration during his sentencing at Southampton Crown Court last month.

The raids in Boscombe took place on March 1, with two businesses damaged and windows smashed.

He also committed a number of other burglary offences in the Bournemouth area.

Newman, aged 44 and of no fixed abode, was sentenced to a total of four years in prison.

At around 3.30am on March 1, the owner of Devon Candies in Sea Road was asleep in the flat above the store when he heard the sound of smashing glass in the shop.

He went downstairs and found a pane of glass in the shop door had been smashed and it appeared that a search of the premises had taken place but nothing was stolen.

The victim believed he disturbed the defendant and he ran off without taking anything.

At around 6.20am that same morning officers were called to a report of an insecure premises with a smashed window at the TK Laptops Repair Centre in Palmerston Road in Boscombe.

The defendant was seen on CCTV to use a hammer to smash a hole in the glass front door at around 5am and climb in to gain entry.

Once inside he smashed the door to a glass cabinet and stole various computer hardware and electronic items with an estimated value of between £1,500 and £2,000.

Fingerprint lifts from the scene were found to match those of Newman and DNA from a swab of apparent blood was also found to be a match.

Newman was arrested at a flat in Sea Road on Monday March 17.

Owner of TK Laptops, Marcin Kaniecki told the Daily Echo at the time: “I’ve had the shop around five years, and it’s the first time I’ve been broken into - but I was sort of expecting something like this to happen one day."

He added: "I enjoy being here in my tiny shop, but things like this are a big loss for me and my business, and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take me to recover from this loss."