A MAN who was given a chance after he burgled 10 houses – including his grandparents' – has again been spared jail.

George Mullard was put on a suspended sentence after a judge told him 'you have just about satisfied my expectations' on a rehabilitation course.

But after being given the opportunity the 22-year-old repeatedly failed to turn up for unpaid work and other appointments with the probation service.

Mullard went on a stealing spree in Royal Wootton Bassett and Swindon's Old Town last year, plundering jewellery with priceless sentimental value.

In one raid he used a Sharpie pen to scrawl a vile word on the living room wall of the burgled house.

After his aunt put forward £15,000 a Judge Robert Pawson gave him the chance to get clean of drugs at residential rehab in Bournemouth called Street Scene.

Though he completed the course the centre put him on a final warning for not engaging with treatment, taking pills with another resident and disappearing to go drinking.

When he was sentenced in March he got a 22-month jail term suspended for two years with 25 days of rehabilitation activity requirement and 200 hours of unpaid work.

But since then he has done just 20 hours of the order and three of the probation days, missing four appointments including two for unpaid work.

Mullard said he had been struggling with his mental health as he had anxiety and depression and was seeking help from doctors.

Judge Jason Taylor QC: "I am not impressed by what I have read here at all, and the presumption when somebody breaches a suspended sentence order, particularly when they were quite fortunate to get it in the first place.

"Judge Pawson took a chance with you. Then the assumption should be it is activated.

"Your sentence was after a period of deferment. You did what you had to during that period, it seems to me you have lost your motivation. I have not seen any medical evidence.

"The reality is I am going to tell you now that if you come back on a breach again you can expect to go straight to prison, do you understand that? That has got to be your motivation. I am not minimising the other difficulties you have got."

He said it would be unjust to activate the sentence and added a further 40 hours of unpaid work to the order.

Mullard went on the offending spree in August and September last year, raiding three houses on Field Rise, in Old Town, along with four others in neighbouring streets.

During one of the break ins he made off with a couple's engagement rings, bought in the 1960s, and took gold and pearl jewellery worth thousands from neighbours.

In September he broke into a house on Saffron Close, Royal Wootton Bassett, making off with a £900 gold sovereign ring and a £500 Gucci watch.

"More disturbing: someone had written the word **** on the living room wall with a Sharpie pen," Hannah Squire, prosecuting, told an earlier hearing.

A few days earlier he had raided his grandmother's home on High Street, Royal Wootton Bassett, and in July he raided her next door neighbour.

On that occasion he stole a set of diamond stud earrings worth £4,000, a £300 silver chain and an Apple watch worth £369. None of the jewellery was recovered.