SHOPLIFTER and heroin user Gavin Gant has been given a last ditch chance by magistrates to get his life back in order. Gant was given an 18 month drug treatment and testing order by South East Suffolk Magistrates who heard he wanted to straighten his life out.

SHOPLIFTER and heroin user Gavin Gant has been given a last ditch chance by magistrates to get his life back in order.

Gant was given an 18 month drug treatment and testing order by South East Suffolk Magistrates who heard he wanted to straighten his life out.

Gant, of the YMCA on Norwich Road, Ipswich, admitted stealing a Tommy Hilfiger box set from Debenhams on February 18 and a wallet on March 17.

He was spotted stealing a £57 gift set of designer after-shave from the department store and was chased up the street, but officers lost him in Lloyds Avenue.

A month later he went into a garage on Spring Road and stole a worker's wallet while they were on the telephone.

Police searched Gant's lodgings and found the wallet, which contained £40 cash, in his room with the credit cards still inside.

Nikki Miller, mitigating, said of Gant's record was consistent with young people who offend to feed their drug habit. She said he had spent his benefit on drugs and took the perfume to pay for rent arrears.

"He was hoping to get his head above water," Mrs Miller told magistrates, but added the tide had turned.

"He is in a situation where he can't keep up his lifestyle any more and wants to change things. He doesn't wish to spend his life offending to pay for his heroin use. Enough is enough. He needs to do something about this. He is very desperate to change.

"He is throwing himself at your mercy and asking you to give him the opportunity to change his life once and for all."

Bench chairwoman Anne Walker gave him an 18-month drug treatment and testing order and ordered him to pay £40 cash to the owner of the wallet. He was also ordered to pay £57 compensation to Debenhams.