A SHOPLIFTER beat up a security guard who tried to detain him at a Totton supermarket, Southampton Crown Court heard.

Paul Whiting told Lee Hazell he would be escorted back into Morrison's unless he produced the receipt for the £100 worth of items he had taken.

Prosecutor Dawn Hyland said Hazell responded by pushing the guard who in turn grabbed him and took him to the floor.

There Hazell then punched him to the right side of the face and temple area before kicking him in the jaw.

Within a fortnight, he broke into the Southampton flat of a Lithuanian woman and stole a computer which he stuffed into a suitcase before leaving.

Hazell later went shoplifting at the Tesco Express shop in Bitterne where he was seen to put two packets of a meat into a carrier bag. When challenged, he ran off, breaking a pane of glass in a door, before escaping down a side alley.

On arrest, he pushed his sister, believing she had shopped him to the police.

Hazell, 27, of Ashby Close, Totton, admitted two counts of assault and one each of theft, causing damage and burglary.

Said to have 26 previous convictions, he was jailed for 20 months.