A BRAZEN burglar dressed as a shop worker to get access to stores - then emptied the safes and made off with stock.

Paul Theaker, 35, wore a Timpson's uniform to trick supermarket staff into letting him into kiosks on their premises.

The career criminal struck at 12 of the the shoe repair and key-cutting businesses across the region using the same con.

The 35-year-old from Darlington - who has 123 offences on his record and has now been sentenced to a total of 23 years jail time - was finally caught after a security guard at Tesco in Newton Aycliffe, became suspicious.

Although Theaker ran off and left behind a bag containing a safe and phone screens, he was arrested two months later and was quickly linked to an identical scam the same night in Sedgefield and confessed to others across County Durham and Yorkshire.

He struck in Darlington, Durham City, Consett, Ripon, Northallerton, Harrogate, Leeds and Doncaster within three months.

The court heard how he would turn up after Timpson's had closed in full uniform and ask the key-holders at the supermarkets to give him the keys.

He used a variety of excuses - either that he was expecting a delivery or needed to pick up paperwork - to get in, and fled with what he could.

In Harrogate, he took a safe containing £1,200 while a safe with £1,500 inside was carted off from the store in Doncaster.

A safe containing cash and other valuables with a total of £1,000 was taken from Consett, while £962 plus watches, keys and mobile telephone accessories were snatched from the store within Sainsbury's in the Arnison Centre, Durham.

At Teesside Crown Court, Theaker, of Auckland Oval, Darlington, was jailed for a total of three years and four months.

In 2011, Theaker was locked up for a series of burglaries - and within weeks, wrote to police to own up to eight others.

With chilling composure, he broke into a house to boil a kettle to de-ice the windscreen of an Audi he wanted to steal.

He then took a brush to sweep snow off the car and the drive, and chatted with oblivious neighbours as he did so.

That was Theaker's seventh jail term in eight years, and he now has 123 offences on his record - including 22 burglaries.

The court heard how he also fraudulently used a fuel card from a potato company where he was employed last year.

Jonathan Harley, mitigating, said: "He doesn't have problems with drugs or alcohol. It seems it is just an entrenched attitude.

Mr Harley added that a colleague put Theaker up to the fuel card fraud, and he did the burglaries to help out his in-debt cousin.

Judge Howard Crowson replied: "It seems to be other people who get him into trouble. People might be cynical about that.

"He has 19 other convictions for burglary and a string of other offences. He was the one dressed in the uniform."

The judge told Theaker: "You set about a very carefully-planned series of burglaries dressing up as an employee of Timpson's.

"You were exploiting the good-will which must exist between the supermarket and Timpson's which are within their grounds."

Theaker has now received more than 23 years worth of sentences since he first started committing crime as a juvenile.

He admitted three burglaries, an attempted burglary, two handling stolen goods charges and fraud by false representation.

He asked for a further eight burglaries to be taken into account along with an offence of attempted burglary.