A career burglar has again been jailed after ransacking a home and stealing expensive Pokémon cards shortly after leaving prison.

Anthony Walker, 48, was arrested wearing the same sunglasses he stole from the property, after his DNA was found on a magnum bottle.

Walker, from Dover, who has 35 convictions for 84 convictions, was jailed at Canterbury Crown Court after pleading guilty to his eighth burglary.

The thief left prison with a £47 grant but it wasn’t enough to feed him and so he turned to crime, his lawyer said.

Walker was arrested in August this year, days after his victim returned to find police inside his home.

His hand prints were found on a magnum of wine and, when police matched the DNA, Walker was found wearing the same Ray-Ban sunglasses reported missing.

Prosecutor Carolina Bracken explained a neighbour raised the alarm after seeing Walker break into the property.

The victim returned to find police inside his home and an investigation was launched.

But Walker would initially slip through the police’s net when he was caught with bank cards belonging to the victim and then released.

Stacey-Lee Holland, mitigating, said Walker was “in a position, released with £47 then finds he has to steal to feed himself.

“These were Pokémon cards he tells me, which he could sell.”

Specific details of the cards taken were not given in court but the collectibles can fetch thousands, with the most expensive example selling for £200,000.

She added Walker, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at an early opportunity, was “intoxicated” and the burglary was “not planned.”

But Judge Simon James, who previously jailed Walker for four years for burglary, replied: “He goes around looking for places to burgle, it’s obvious.”

The judge jailed Walker for three-and-a-half years for burglary and a further four months, to run consecutively, for unrelated shoplifting and bicycle theft offences.

He was spotted stealing the bike from a rack with bolt cutters earlier this year and had shoplifted goods worth about £400, Ms Bracken said.