A TEENAGER whose life spiralled out of control after he lost a football scholarship has been locked up for nearly five years for an "appalling" catalogue of offending.

Jamie Cowens, 19, who was once dubbed the "pied piper" of a gang of feral young thieves, appeared via video link at Bradford Crown Court yesterday to be sentenced for crimes including burglary, theft, common assault and breach of a community behaviour order.

He already has 11 convictions for 34 offences and had been handed a number of community orders prior to yesterday's sentencing.

Locking him up for a total of 56 months in a young offender's institute, His Honour Judge Jonathan Rose told him: "The courts tried to deal with you a number of different ways - each time that was done you have throw it back in the courts' face."

In one burglary, in October last year, mole grips were used to snap the lock from the door of a young woman's house in Bingley. Bank cards, later used to make three transactions, euros worth around £200 to £300 and sentimental jewellery worth £500 to £600 were stolen.

The woman slept through the burglary, but described the severe impact it had on her through a statement read out in court.

She described having sleepless nights, feeling "emotional and irritable", feeling scared to go out with her friends in the evening and resorting to keeping a hammer in her bedroom.

The court heard Cowens had also been involved in an attempted burglary in the Five Lane Ends area some days later. Police spotted him with two other males and found him with black gloves and mole grips, which were forensically linked to both houses. A late plea of guilty was entered for those offences.

After being arrested and granted bail, he then went on to breach his community order in January this year when he became involved in an altercation at the Asda store in Town Gate, Wyke, producing a screw driver to threaten someone. He pleaded guilty to the breach at magistrates' court.

Cowens was also sentenced for a robbery on an Arriva bus in May this year, where he snatched a bus driver's money bag containing £80 in cash. The driver tried to resist, but Cowens and two accomplices started tugging at the bag and managed to get away with it. They were later seen on Tong Street counting money from the bag.

The court heard of other occasions when money had been taken from Yorkshire Tiger buses, an assault on a security guard at Asda at Owlcotes, Pudsey, and two shoplifting offences at Wibsey's Co-op store and a McColl's store on Beacon Road.

Guilty pleas were entered at a pre-trial hearing in relation to these offences.

Frances Pencheon, for Cowens, said his future football career, for which he had a scholarship, was brought to an end following a serious leg break and he also left the family home.

She said there is hope he is starting to realise he cannot continue on a path of "spiralling out of control" like he had done.

Judge Rose said he had an "appalling" antecedent history for someone so young and told him he had "stolen" sentimental memories from the young woman whose home he burgled and that he had seen bus drivers as "soft targets".

He said there had been an escalation in offending and he would have to be locked up.