A serial fraudster who targeted shops in Brighton and Chichester has been spared jail after promising to turn his life around.

Ian Mcenroe, 51, of no fixed address, swindled shop workers by demanding a refund on goods he had never bought but had just plucked off the shelves.

He pretended their goods had injured a sister or child, stealing a total of £669 from six shops in May last year.

He was given a deferred sentenced having pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud and telling Judge David Rennie how he wanted to decorate his terminally ill mother’s bungalow.

Hove Crown Court was told he started abusing heroin after his wife’s death in a car crash six years ago, and stole to fund that addiction. He was jailed for 20 months in 2010 and 15 months in 2013 for similar offences.

Speaking via video-link from HMP Bullingdon, where he handed himself back in after being released by mistake in December, he told the judge he was clean and “needed a little chance”.

He added: “I can go to my mum’s and should be doing what a son should be doing.

“It might sound stupid but her little bungalow needs decorating and I would like to be able to go and do that for her.

“If I come before you again, slam me, give me as much as you like, but I am determined to beat this.

“This addiction is the most powerful thing in my life – it is frightening. It is like someone trying to teach you how to drive and they show you where the accelerator is but they don’t show you where the break is.”

Judge Rennie agreed to defer sentencing until July 10, asking McEnroe to show at the next hearing he was crime and drug-free and getting help.

He added: “If this is just a fraudster saying all the right things to get out – you are obviously not that good at it, you will be caught and I will then send you to prison for as long as I need to.”

Mcenroe is also facing charges over a further 19 similar offences.

He was due to appear before Southampton magistrates on those charges, but Judge Rennie asked for them to be brought before him at the July 10 hearing.