A PROMISING young footballer from Bournemouth who turned to crime has been jailed for a series of burglaries.

Lawrence Windle from Boscombe committed three burglaries and a theft while out on licence from prison for a previous burglary.

The serial offender, who has more than 35 convictions and targeted hotel and student accommodation, was on the books of Weymouth Football Club as a teenager.

Now 23, Windle broke into a student’s room at St Anthony’s College in Woodstock Road, Oxford, on February 1 and stole an Apple Mac laptop.

He then broke into the college’s senior common room and took a Dell laptop.

Windle admitted both burglaries at Oxford Crown Court on Monday and also confessed to taking another laptop in a burglary at the Berlitz Language Centre in Oxford High Street on September 30.

He also admitted shoplifting food from a convenience store on January 7 and asked for another burglary, at a hotel in Newbury, to be taken into consideration.

Stephen Bailey, defending, said his client “wants to desperately sort himself out”.

He added: “He left school very early and fell into bad trouble and has found it very difficult to break the cycle ever since. He used to be a budding footballer until 15 when crime got in the way.”

Mr Bailey said his client “apologises to each of the victims”.

Judge Anthony King jailed Windle, of Seabourne Road, for three years, which will start after he has served the remaining period earlierHe said: “It is perfectly apparent from your previous convictions that you deliberately target student accommodation or hotels, both the accommodation parts and public areas, and that you target such items as laptops.

“You must know that if you steal laptops from academic premises it is extremely likely that what you are stealing is the cumulative results of students’ work over a long time and they will be put in an appalling position.”

He added: “You have said in a letter to me that it is your intention to sort yourself out. I hope that you mean it because if you do not, all that will happen is you will serve longer and longer sentences to protect the public.”