A Suffolk burglar who was spared an immediate prison sentence last year after impressing a judge with a change in his attitude to committing offences is back behind bars after returning to his old ways.

Kyle Beard was given a 14-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months in June last year after a judge at Ipswich Crown Court said there appeared to have been a “tremendous change” in his attitude.

He said Beard had a very bad criminal record but since his release from his last prison sentence his progress had been “very good indeed”.

Beard, 29, of Main Road, Sutton, Woodbridge, had admitted burglary at the Hair Sanctuary in Rendlesham and a house in The Street, Melton, in a two-week period in January last year.

In addition to the suspended prison sentence he was given a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement and ordered to pay £580 compensation and a £100 victim surcharge.

At the previous sentencing hearing Neil Saunders, for Beard, said a probation officer who had written a report on him said they had rarely seen such a change in someone.

However today (Tuesday) Beard was back before the court for sentence after breaching his suspended sentence order by stealing food and alcohol worth £114 from Wickham Market Co-op on May 18 this year.

Activating nine months of the suspended sentence, Recorder Jeremy Benson said: “This is a tragic case because you’d achieved great things by getting yourself off drugs and trying to start a new life and that’s why the judge who sentenced you on that occasion gave you a suspended prison sentence.”

Roger Thomson, for Beard, said his client had moved to Bournemouth and managed to get off drugs and this had been behind the previous judge’s decision to find “exceptional circumstances” for not imposing a mandatory three year prison sentence on him.

However, after moving back to Suffolk Beard had slipped back into his old ways by mixing with old friends and using Class A drugs again.

He said Beard hadn’t been working and wasn’t receiving benefits when he committed the shoplifting offence.