A BUNGLING thief with an “astonishing criminal record” was caught after he returned to steal from a shop for the second day running.

Police were looking at the previous day’s CCTV footage of Clint Wallace stuffing bottles of perfume into his rucksack when the 31-year-old walked into the same store and started doing exactly same thing again.

He was wearing the same clothes and took up the same position – crouched behind a counter – to load his bag with expensive bottles of perfume and aftershave.

The day before, he and an accomplice, who has never been caught, made off with more than £3,000 of goods from Lloyds Pharmacy, in Billericay High Street.

But when he returned to try his luck again, on June 23, a police officer nabbed him as he attempted to steal another £200 of scents.

Wallace, who had recently been released from prison on licence when he committed the offences, admitted two counts of theft at a hearing in June.

Judge Alan Saggerson, sitting at Basildon Crown Court, said he had an “astonishing criminal record” containing 52 previous convictions dating back to 1992 for thefts and burglaries, and breaches of prison sentences and an Asbo.

His most recent spell behind bars came this April, when he received 14 weeks for stealing cosmetics from Boots on Canvey.

On that occasion he was caught out by his DNA, after he concealed security tags in his mouth before hiding them on shelves in the store.

The tags were analysed and enabled police to track him down to Pentonville prison, where he was serving a sentence for a previous offence.

Yesterday, the court heard Wallace, a father of two young daughters, stole to feed his heroin habit.

Wallace, of Armstead Walk, Dagenham, was given eight months for the first count of theft, and a consecutive six-month term for the second.

The 32 days he has already spent in custody will count towards his sentence.