A REFORMED criminal who “went off the rails” when a relationship ended suddenly was back behind bars last night for a three-month crime-spree.

After a decade of law-abiding life, heartbreak from his abrupt love-split turned Ian Bacon’s life upside down, a court was told yesterday.

The 37-year-old joiner ransacked a shoe repair and key-cutting shop in Billingham, near Stockton, and threw a safe in the River Tees.

Teesside Crown Court heard that he enlisted two un-named others to take away the safe, force it open and split the £120 inside between them.

Ironically, the firm targeted by Bacon - Timpson’s - runs a scheme to help ex-offenders return to the workplace, Judge Howard Crowson said.

Prosecutor Rachel Masters said Bacon’s footwear print was found at the scene of the crime on June 12, and he was linked to other offences.

He had also tried and failed to break into a garage outside a home on Tintern Avenue, Billingham, a month earlier, Miss Masters told the court.

Bacon, of Wallington Court, Billingham, admitted burglary and attempted burglary, and asked for three more offences to be taken into account from April to June - trying to burgle another garage, burgling a shop and trying to steal alcohol from a garden.

He had 48 offences on his record including five burglaries. He was jailed for six months for burglaries in December last year.

Duncan McReddie, mitigating, said Bacon led a “normal productive life” for a decade between 2004 and 2014 when he was off drugs, out of trouble and working as a time-served joiner with a family.

“Sadly in 2014 his partner left him abruptly,” said Mr McReddie. “That caused him a degree of emotional distress.

“He went back to heroin to alleviate that distress.”

Mr McReddie said Bacon drifted back to former associates and committed crime to fund drug use and pay off drug debts. “He’s sliding back down into the cycle of drug use and criminality.

“What Mr Bacon needs is rehabilitation and assistance in achieving rehabilitation, and we know that will not be provided in a short stay at HMP.

“He’s motivated to change. He wants to get his life back to what it was before.

“I would invite Your Honour to show leniency and endeavour not to expose him to the revolving door, and capitalise on the strength of character he has shown in the past.”

Judge Howard Crowson said he could not consider suspending the prison sentence for Bacon’s “catalogue of offending”, and jailed him for 18 months.