A prowler was locked up for nine months yesterday after being found acting suspiciously in a Southampton garage.

The court heard how Swayne Harrison Eulette Gibbons, 35, was found in the garage of a house on Middle Road, Southampton, on March 18 this year.

Crown counsel Shakira Dill told Magistrates' Court that the owner of the house found Gibbons in the garage, where a number of power tools were kept, and asked him what he was doing.

Gibbons then told the occupant that he was looking for gas for his bike.

But Ms Dill said his bike, which had been parked hidden behind some bushes close to the house, had just under a quarter of a tank of gas.

The owner called Police and Gibbons was arrested and questioned. Officers asked Gibbons why he had not knocked on the door of the house to talk to one of the owners if he needed gas.

Gibbons, who had a string of similar convictions, pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to nine months in prison by Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves.

He also pleaded guilty to a second charge of prowling, earlier this year, but pleaded not guilty to breaking and entering and going equipped to burgle a house, including having a mask, on the same occasion.

Gibbons is to be tried in Magistrates' Court for those matters on April 17.