TEENAGE burglar David Higgins has been sentenced to a further eight months' detention in a young offenders' institution.

The 19-year-old was last month sentenced to 18 months' detention after admitting a charge of robbery.

But he was given an extra eight months yesterday after pleading guilty to burgling a flat in Lawrence Street, Shelton, between September 4 and 10 last year.

Prosecutor Heather Chamberlin told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday that Higgins knew the homeowner and that he was away visiting a relative.

The defendant, of Pembridge Road, Blurton, stole two DVDs and a CD and caused £50 damage after smashing his way inside the flat. Blood was left on a bed sheet and Higgins made full admissions when interviewed by police.

David Pojur, mitigating, said it was Higgins's first domestic burglary and it has been a wake-up call for him.

He asked Judge Paul Glenn to give the teenager a short sentence to run concurrently with the one he is already serving. But Judge Glenn ordered that yesterday's sentence should run consecutively.

And he told Higgins: "You have been a persistent offender since the age of 14.

"It was a particularly mean, premeditated burglary of someone's home who you knew."