THIS is the man who has inflicted misery on scores of motorists in south Hampshire.

Scott Hunt, 28, targeted more than 150 vehicles in his one-man car crime wave.

He would smash windows and rip out radios - then sell them on for cash to feed his decade-old drug habit. But Hunt's days of preying on people's cars are over after a judge jailed him for two years.

Hunt, who has previous convictions for car crime, would pounce on unattended vehicles in the New Forest, Totton and Shirley in Southampton to satisfy his amphetamine craving.

Breaking windows, he used a small knife to prise away more than £30,000 worth of property.

His lawyer Alezia Zimbler said he had been an addict since he was 18 and had only been drug-free since being on remand.

"He needs one eighth of a gramme a day to fund his addiction. A car stereo could be sold for about £30 and that would be enough to cover him for a day"

Hunt, of Millbrook Road West, Millbrook, Southampton, admitted seven charges of theft and asked for 148 other similar offences to be considered.

He had also pleaded guilty causing damage by smashing the rear window of a vehicle and going equipped with a knife for theft.

The city crown court heard he was no stranger to car crime. Hunt, whose offending began in 1989, was jailed for four months in October 1998 for stealing from vehicles.

The following February he went back inside for 28 days for similar offences and in April he got a six month term again for further theft.

He had also broken into some cars while subject to a 12 months conditional discharge for theft.

Ms Zimbler said Hunt had confessed to the police all the matters he wanted considered. "It was not a question of the other way round, of the police putting them to him.''

Asking for a community rehabilitation order so that he could live at a specialist hostel to help his battle against addiction, she said: "This has been going on for ten years. He has not been able to break the drugs cycle he became involved in.

"He has only been drug free for the last seven weeks and the last four times he has been tested, he has been clean.''

But the judge said custody was the only appropriate sentence because of the number of offences involved, the value of the goods stolen and the fact some of the offences were committed in breach of the conditional discharge.