A 20-year-old man has been jailed for three years and four months after admitting to committing 16 burglaries in a four month period in Southampton.

Macauley Bowers, of no fixed abode, was convicted with the aid of DNA evidence collected at the scene of one the burglaries.

He was sentenced at Southampton Crown Court after pleading guilty to two burglaries in Southampton.

Fifteen other offences were taken into consideration including a further 14 Southampton break-ins and one offence of theft from a motor vehicle.

The burglaries were committed between December 2016 and March 2017.

In January 2017, Bowers used a stone to smash through a rear window to gain entry to a home on St James Road in Shirley.

When the burglar alarm the occupants had fitted after a previous burglary went off Bowers grabbed some credit cards and left.

Officers were deployed and crime scene investigators swabbed the scene in a bid to secure any forensics left by the offender.

Later, in March 2017, Bowers smashed a window to gain entry to house in Midanbury Lane while the occupants were out. He took a laptop computer, a computer tablet and some jewellery.

When the DNA results came back from the St James Road swabs, Bowers was identified as the suspect.

The team of detectives and police constables that make up Operation Hawk tracked him down and arrested him.

When Bowers was arrested on March 20, he was carrying the tablet computer he’d stolen from the Midanbury Lane burglary he committed just a few days before. He was charged with both offences.

PC Adrian Lugg from the Operation Hawk Team based at Southampton Central Police Station said: “Burglary is a terrible crime that affects victims on a very personal level. We will not stop pursuing burglars and taking them off the streets, not only to get justice for victims, but to ensure we make people’s homes in Southampton safer.”