A BURGLAR from Swindon has been jailed after he made three bungled attempts at a getaway in three different stolen vehicles.

Kenny Dalgiesh, 35, broke into a workshop at Winkleigh through a ventilation shaft and helped himself to milk from the fridge before taking £15 and the keys to a BMW.

He found the yard outside locked and drove the car straight through a fence to get out but damaged it in the process and slid into a ditch within a few hundred yards.

He was so desperate to escape that he went back to the same garage and took keys for a camper van which was in for repair.

He drove it through the same hole in the fence and set off for his home in Swindon but the van broke down on a lane close to the garage on Winkleigh Airfield.

Dalgliesh did not give up. He hid in bushes until a passing motorist stopped to investigate the abandoned van and then attacked him and took the keys to his Peugeot.

This time he succeeded in getting as far as Cullompton before police intercepted him at the M5 motorway junction as he headed north towards Swindon.

Unemployed false leg maker Dalgliesh, of Spring Close, Eldene, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm, burglary, aggravated vehicle taking and two counts of taking vehicles without consent.

He was jailed for a total of 22 months by Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: "This series of offences undoubtedly crosses the custody threshhold. You took the keys to the BMW, drove it through a fence a subsequently crashed it.

"You went back to the garage, which you entered again so you could take the keys to a camper van, which you drove off in before it broke down.

"The son of a mechanic saw it and when he stopped you were hiding in bushes and came out and kicked and punched him to the ground and took the keys to his Peugeot, which was stopped by police as you went back up country."

Miss Felicity Payne, prosecuting, said Dalgliesh had been staying with a friend near Winkleigh but they had fallen out and he had decided to go home to Swindon.

He broke into the Airfield Garage on May 29 and took the money and milk before finding the keys to the BMW and driving off.

He crashed through a fence to get out of the locked yard and the damage caused the car to become undriveable. He crashed it again into a ditch within a short distance and abandoned it, having caused £4,000 damage.

He got a little further in the VW camper van before it broke down and he then attacked villager Christopher Leahy, who stopped because his father worked at the garage and he recognised the van.

Miss Payne read a victim impact statement in which Mr Leahy said:"I will never forget the look in that man's eyes when he threatened to do me in. I have no doubt he would have done it I had not given him my keys."

Mr Joss Ticehurst, defending, said Dalgliesh had a good job as a manager at a prosthetic limb factory until he was accused of rape in 2010 and subsequently cleared.

He was jailed for a domestic assault in 2014 and come to Devon to start a new life. He broke into the garage to find a way of getting home when it did not work out.

Mr Ticehurst said: "He wanted to extract himself from a situation and it led to wholly unthinking behaviour. He has no explanation other than he felt impelled to leave."