A SERIAL shoplifter with an "appalling" criminal record has been jailed.

Light-fingered Damian Dunstan, of Croxton Walk, Horwich, relentlessly targeted chain stores across Bolton borough.

He stole £250 of razors from ASDA in The Linkway on the Middlebrook Retail Park in Horwich on October 1.

The 33-year-old stole video games worth the same amount from the same store on November 5.

Dunstan returned to the supermarket a third time on November 9 and stole electrical goods costing £120.

He admitted three counts of theft at Bolton Magistrates' Court on Monday (Nov 16) and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison for each offence.

The court was told Dunstan committed the three offences in breach of suspended sentences he was given by the same court for a series of earlier shoplifting offences along the same lines.

Dunstan made off with aftershave worth £76 from ASDA in Manchester Road, Burnden Park, on August 8 and stole various drills and parts costing £312 from a B&Q store in Bolton on September 4.

He took razors and aftershave totalling £137 from a Tesco store in Chorley, Lancashire, on September 14.

On the same day stole razor blades to the value of £250 from an unspecified branch of ASDA in Bolton.

The court decided to re-sentence Dunstan for those four theft offences and imposed for each a concurrent prison sentences of 12 weeks in place of the original suspended period of custody.

In total, Dunstan will serve 36 weeks in jail after the court decided he had an "appalling record for dishonesty and breaching court orders".

He must pay a victim surcharge of £100 and a criminal courts charge of £180.