A SELF-CONFESSED crime addict has been spared jail after admitting burgling a York church hall.

Magistrates - who warned Daniel Holmes at an earlier hearing that he could go to prison - decided instead to make him do 40 hours of unpaid community work.

Presiding magistrate Wendy Bundy said the community punishment order was a direct alternative to custody.

Holmes, 18, hit the headlines in May when he was made the subject of a criminal antisocial behaviour order by York magistrates.

Yesterday he was in court again to be sentenced by Selby magistrates for stealing £5 in club subscriptions and a box of crisps from St Paul's Church, in Holgate Road, York.

Holmes, formerly of Holgate, now lives in Cygnet House, Church Lane, Selby, which is a hostel for homeless young people.

The court heard he burgled the church on May 3 - only three weeks before the CRASBO was imposed.

He also admitted driving without insurance, and without a licence or MOT certificate, for which six penalty points were put on his licence.

The court heard that one of the trustees at St Paul's Church entered the building at 7.30am to find that doors to locked cupboards had been torn off.

Holmes later made a full admission to police about the theft of £5 and a box of crisps, his second offence of burglary.

Antony Farrell, mitigating at an earlier hearing, said Holmes had had a huge shock since being made the subject of a CRASBO.

The order banned him from setting foot inside York's outer ring road and from drinking in public or causing a nuisance.

He said that Holmes's family had had problems coming to terms with what was happening, with all the press publicity and pressure.

Magistrates told Holmes yesterday they had read the probation service's pre-sentence report and, although the latest offences were "totally unacceptable", they were pleased he was responding to the existing order.

Updated: 10:54 Thursday, July 08, 2004