A Nestle worker turned to house raiding when he lost his job in last autumn's cut-backs at the chocolate factory, York Crown Court heard.

Desperate for money, David Wilson, 40, resumed the burglary career he had abandoned to earn an honest living.

But he was so incompetent at crime he left DNA or fingerprints at three houses and went straight back to prison.

"You are a habitual burglar," the Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman told Wilson. "For three years, when you had the support of your loyal wife, you went straight. But when things got tough in the domestic sense and you lost your job, you, as you frankly said, returned to what you know best."

Wilson, of West Villas, Bell Lane, Huby, pleaded guilty to two burglaries and one attempted burglary and was jailed for two years. He has spent at least 13 years in total in prison for previous offences.

Prosecutor Rosemary Ainslie said Wilson used a fence post to smash through a patio door of a house in Fountayne Terrace, York, on November 10. He set off its burglar alarm, but got away with jewellery, including a dead father's graduation gift of a brooch to its occupier. He gave the brooch to his partner, but police found it at his home after his arrest.

On November 23, Wilson was about to climb into a home in Huby via a ladder when its occupier surprised him and he fled. He was cornered in a back garden, denied he was a burglar and was told to leave.

He also smashed his way into Lady Hewley's Cottages in York, but only stole cigarettes.

His barrister, Nicholas Johnson, said his client he had gone straight since being released from prison and marrying a prison visitor in 2003. He had earned a living first as a market trader in Cambridgeshire and then working for Nestle in York.

But he lost his job in cutbacks last September, his marriage broke down and he found himself living alone in bed and breakfast accommodation."He became financially and socially desperate and without the coping skills of those who have not been incarcerated, he returned to offending," said Mr Johnson.

Wilson's wife hopes for them to be together again, the barrister added.