A Thief has been jailed for obtaining thousands of pounds worth of mail order goods - from diamond rings, to trendy trainers and mobile phones - in other people's names.

Stuart Poole, 45, opened accounts in various names and addresses to order the goods from catalogues such as Next, Littlewoods and Freemans so he could sell them on to feed a drink and drug habit.

Poole, of Bourne Road, Southampton, was rumbled when a man who had received some of the goods in the same block of flats went to the police.

He had started to receive demands for payment from debt collectors and was threatened with court action.

Poole pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft and asked for seven others to be taken into account between July 2005 and September last year. The total value of the goods was £2,285.

Simon Foster, defending, told Southampton Crown Court that Poole had ordered the goods in a haphazard fashion.

"He was committing these offences sitting at his own address ordering them from a computer in a more or less a haphazard way because he found it an easy way to obtain goods", he said.

Mr Foster said Poole sold them on for cash and sometimes ordered them for other people to fund a 20-year alcohol and drug habit.

Poole was drinking a litre of vodka a day topped up with red wine in the evening, Mr Foster said.

Judge Tom Longbotham called the offences "mean and nasty" which impacted the lives of a significant number of people. He jailed Poole for two-and-a-half years for the thefts and breaches of court orders.