A SERIAL burglar left behind by his getaway driver after a raid on a Dudley High Street shop has been locked up for 21 months.

Sam Williams and another accomplice had collected £7,500 worth of mobile phones and they were getting ready to carry the till away from the Phone Squad store.

But when their getaway driver spotted police officers arriving on the scene he quickly accelerated away leaving the other two men in the lurch.

Williams and his co-gang member opted to run away in different directions having been forced to leave behind their haul, said Nicholas Tatlow prosecuting.

But the 27-year-old was sniffed out by a police dog after deciding to hide behind a wall near a town centre car park, he told Wolverhampton Crown Court.

When CCTV footage from inside the phone store was checked it revealed Williams had on the distinctive trainers and track suit bottoms worn by one of the raiders.

Mr Tatlow said Williams was on bail at the time following the theft of drills worth £250 from a shop in the Wolverhampton area and he had failed to turn up at a magistrates court.

Williams, of no fixed address, admitted burglary, theft and failing to answer his bail and Recorder Christopher Millington QC ruled he had to go straight to jail.

The getaway driver and the other man involved in the raid had not been traced by police officers and they were still at large, said Mr Tatlow.

Jon Roe, defending, told the court that Williams, who had 11 previous convictions for burglary on his criminal record, was now hoping to turn his life around on his release from custody.