A FORMER soldier has been jailed after brazenly stealing from a shop while carrying a plastic sword.

HIGH on either drink or drugs, Luke Farmer stunned a shopkeeper he knew by walking into the private area of his convenience shop and stealing three bottles of spirits.

Southampton Crown Court heard the bizarre burglary happened when 21- year-old Farmer was on bail for selling cocaine which he said he had bought for £250 and sold to settle a debt.

Prosecutor Richard Willcox described how Farmer then went drinking and turned himself in by flagging down a police car when he had a small bag of cocaine worth about £20 on him.

Farmer, of Wimpson Lane, Southampton, admitted burgling the shop in Irving Road, Maybush, and being concerned in the supply of cocaine.

Judge Derwin Hope heard Farmer was also in breach of a community service imposed for causing damage and using threatening words or behaviour and jailed him for 18 months.

Jonanthan Simpson, defending, told the court how the break up of his parents’ marriage had caused “a meltdown”

in his life and at the time of emotional lows he took solace in drugs, though he was not an addict.