A career burglar who carried out a smash and grab raid on a seaside jeweller’s has been jailed.

Neil Robinson, 43, drove up to the North Yorkshire shop in the early hours, smashed its window with an axe and reached in to grab four necklaces, said Brooke Morrison, prosecuting.

He then joined his accomplice Kevin O’Connell, 47, who had fled back to the car that had brought them to the scene when a neighbour shouted at them.

Both men drove off, but police were alerted and they were arrested as they tried to head back to their Teesside homes.

The necklaces were worth nearly £5,000 and were not found when the two men were arrested, said Ms Morrison.

Robinson told York Crown Court that he had "lost" two of the necklaces as he ran away from the police and that he had sold the other two.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: “You have been committing burglaries on a regular basis for far too many years now.”

In 2017, Robinson was jailed for four years for burglary, including one in which he stole a pendant containing the ashes of a deceased woman.

He has 131 previous convictions, including 23 for house burglary and five for burglaries of other premises.

Robinson, now of no fixed address, and O’Connell, of Durham Street, Stockton-on-Tees, both pleaded guilty to burglary.

Robinson was jailed for 10 months, to be served after he finishes the 14-month sentence he was given in March for dangerous driving and handling stolen goods.

O’Connell was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition he does a six-month curfew from 8pm to 6am each night and 20 days’ rehabilitative activities. The judge deprived him of the Ford Fiesta the pair had travelled in. O’Connell has 85 previous convictions.

Ms Morrison said the burglars travelled from their homes into North Yorkshire on July 31. Just after 4am they were outside CW Sellors in Sandgate, Whitby.

The noise they made alerted the neighbour who shouted at them as Robinson attacked the window.

For Robinson, Kelly Sherif said he had recently been run over by a car and attacked by a machete. He was also having a difficult time in Hull Prison from other prisoners.

The smash and grab raid had been committed on impulse with an axe he had “found” en route.

“Two men in the middle of the night going to Whitby and just ‘happening’ on an axe?” said the judge. “I don’t buy that.”

For O’Connor, Michael Cahill said it had not been a sophisticated crime as it was noisy and the Ford Fiesta had a distinctive panel on it, so police were likely to identify it.

The judge said O’Connor had an injury and medical matters that would mean he would find serving a prison sentence harder than others.