An escaped prisoner stole more than £50,000 in cash and goods to feed his gambling obsession.

The career criminal's victims not only included his landlady and landlord, but also his girlfriend Southampton Crown Court heard.

Duncan McGing, 39, had walked out of an open prison and fled to Spain where he met his girlfriend.

They later returned to Hampshire, but within one-month of their return he had broken into her parents home and stolen jewellery and a wedding ring.

Sentencing McGing, of no fixed abode, to five-and-a-half years in prison, the judge told him his offending had been as 'mean as mean could be'.

To read the full story see today's Southern Daily Echo.