A LONG-standing drug habit motivated a man to commit offences, a court was told.

Bolton magistrates heard that Darren John Anderson, aged 25, of Manchester Road, Bolton, had stolen a credit card, interfered with a vehicle with the intention of committing an offence and gone equipped with a hammer and a Stanley knife to feed his drug habit.

It was claimed that when the defendant was in the grips of his habit all sensible thought and reason went out of the window.

Anderson was sentenced to a total of six months in prison. Magistrates said his previous record and the fact that his offences were pre-meditated gave them no option but to impose a custodial sentence.