A DRUG-ADDICTED burglar given a chance to overcome his substance misuse gave two positive drug tests during the course of a community order.

Thomas Humphrey, who complied with the order “in all other respects”, will now pay the price for those two failed tests with a three-week home overnight curfew.

Humphrey was sentenced to a two-year community order, with 20 rehabilitation activity days and weekly drug testing, when he appeared at Durham Crown Court, last November, to answer for a daytime burglary committed on June 11, 2018.

The, now, 37-year-old defendant, of Greenbank Road, Darlington, was also made subject of a three-month 10am to 6pm home curfew as part of the sentence.

He admitted breaking into the house, in Framwellgate Moor, via a smashed window shortly after walking out of a mental health unit on nearby Lanchester Road, where he was receiving treatment.

In trying to flee police alerted to his intrusion, Humphrey broke a leg in a fall.

When he came back before the court, in July, for the two breaches, Judge Christopher Prince remanded Humphrey in custody for three days and then set him a five-week challenge to fully comply with the order or risk a longer stretch behind bars.

Having heard he has complied, other than the earlier breaches, Judge Prince gave the bricklayer a three-week 5.30am to 6.30pm home curfew, ending on October 3.