A FORMER soldier sneaked into an acquaintance's house and stole a mobile phone, York Crown Court heard.

Kevin Wright was at home in one room in Danebury Drive, Acomb, York, when Mark Thomas Hawksby, 23, grabbed his phone from another room and crept out, said Geraldine Kelly, prosecuting.

But Mr Wright's mother spotted the burglar leaving as she returned home. She stopped him, and though he claimed he had not been in her home, she checked the bag he was carrying and got the phone back, despite his claims of innocence.

Hawksby, of Chapel Hill Road, Pocklington, pleaded guilty to burglary and was given a two-year drug testing and treatment order.

His barrister, Jeremy Hill-Baker, said he had been a soldier for two years and was married with children. But his wife had been unfaithful to him. Finding her in bed with another man, he had assaulted her lover and had subsequently left the Army.

The court also heard that Hawksby had a drugs habit.

Miss Kelly said that on August 17, Hawksby, who knew a member of the Wright family, knocked on their door. Mr Wright gave no indication that he was in.

Hawksby crept in and grabbed the phone and its charger from a downstairs room. When the family got the two items back, the SIM card was missing.

Updated: 09:44 Saturday, May 24, 2003