A HOMELESS man who was living in a World War Two pillbox carried out a smash and grab raid on a Dawlish phone shop to get money to feed his drug addiction.

Russell Lee had only just finished a jail sentence for a shoplifting spree in Okehampton when he started offending again.

He was due in court for shoplifting at phone shops in Exeter when he broke into the Go Mobile shop on the Strand in Dawlish and stole more than £11,000 worth of stock.

He was caught the next day as he tried to sell them at a second-hand shop in Sidwell Street, Exeter, where staff became suspicious and called the police.

He had no home at the time and was living in the ruins of a concrete bunker which was built in 1940 on the edge of the Dawlish Warren golf course to protect the beach from possible German invasion.

Lee, aged 37, of no fixed abode, admitted possession of class A drugs, two counts of shoplifting, burglary and fraud and was jailed for 58 weeks, suspended for two years by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court.

He was ordered to undergo drug rehabilitation and do 25 days of rehabilitation activities with the probation service.

The judge told him:’You carried out the burglary on the very day you were supposed to be in court.’

He said he was suspending the sentence because Lee has got himself off drugs during the four months he has spent in jail on remand and has been assessed as a good prospect for rehabilitation by the drugs agency Together.

Mr Robert Yates, prosecuting, said Lee was found with heroin and crack cocaine in Exeter on August 13, but released by police and the next day he shoplifted phones worth £970 from two different Carphone Warehouse shops in Exeter.

He was caught and bailed by Exeter Magistrates for a trial on September 25, but broke into the Go Mobile shop in Dawlish at 1 am that morning.

He smashed the glass door to get in and stole mobiles, accessories and cameras worth £11,949.98. He tried to sell them in the Wants shop in Exeter later that morning but staff called police and he was arrested.

He had convictions for 49 previous offences, mostly of dishonesty, and was jailed for 18 weeks in May last year for going on a shoplifting spree in Okehampton, where he stole bottles of spirits worth hundreds of pounds from the Coop and Waitrose in six different offences.

Mr Warren Robinson, defending, said Lee was addicted to drugs at the time of all his offending and was using crime as a way of living day to day. 

He had weaned himself off drugs while in prison and was currently not even using the heroin substitute methadone. He was keen to work with Together, and they had recommended him for a drug rehabilitation requirement.

He said: "He was homeless and living in a bunker in Dawlish at the time of these offences. He hopes to go and stay with his uncle in Exwick when he is released."