A one-man crimewave who brought misery to his victims in York while amassing a haul of more than £40,000 has been jailed.

Michael Andrew Hester, 32, raided 32 houses by night and tried to break into a church as he carried out 41 crimes to fund his heroin addiction, York Crown Court heard.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, said: "Burglary of a church used to be called sacrilege in the good old days." He added that Hester had twice targeted a pensioner living on her own.

"You have caused a lot of trouble to people," he told Hester. "You have stolen property worth something in the region of £40,000 and you have had a good run. Now you have got to pay for it."

He locked up Hester, of Fossway, off Huntington Road, York, for six years.

Hester had pleaded guilty to three house burglaries, two thefts from cars and one offence of abstracting electricity by using a metal loop to bypass his home's meter.

He asked for 29 house burglaries, one attempted church burglary and five thefts from vehicles to be taken into consideration. The crimes to be taken into consideration alone netted him £38,189.

Prosecuting, Nick Worsley said that all the offences occurred between September 2003 and February 2005 in and around the Huntington area. Many of the burglaries had been detected because detectives found loot from them in Hester's home when they searched it following his arrest.

Late in January, 2005, Hester grabbed shears from a garden shed, used them to smash a window and hooked a handbag through it in a house in Firwood Whin, Huntington. He also broke into a car parked outside. He was caught because he drank from a lemonade bottle in the house's garage and left his DNA.

On another raid he was traced through DNA on a cigarette stub he discarded and in a third raid he got away with £9,665 worth of loot including a laptop computer and a car.

He has a long record for burglaries and other offences.

For Hester, Helen Holmes said he was a heroin addict. He had got a job and gone straight on his last release from jail in 2001.

But the temptation to take drugs proved too much and he spiralled back down into crime.

Since being remanded in custody after his arrest, he had become drug-free and started drug counselling.

Updated: 10:02 Wednesday, June 29, 2005