A SERIAL charity box thief could be facing his sixth prison sentence for stealing from good causes - after confessing to his latest spree from shops across Lancashire.

Carl Mason, 33, is awaiting sentence after admitting to the latest in a long line of collecting tin snatches, when he appeared before Burnley magistrates.

Mason initially targeted the bookmakers Ladbrookes, in Parker Lane, Burnley, on February 18, before moving on to carry out a similar theft at a Premier Store in Preston on February 23.

His third theft was at All Fresh grocers, in Colne Road, Burnley.

Mason, of Hobart Street, Burnley, admitted three offences of theft and was bailed until April 22 by magistrates, on condition he does not enter the two Burnley premises and the Preston store, to prevent further offending.

The hardened thief first achieved widespread notoriety when he stole Poppy Appeal tins from various locations in Blackburn.

He was identified by Lancashire Telegraph readers after a CCTV appeal and served a 12-month prison sentence.

Last October he was also jailed for 12 weeks for stealing a collecting tin belonging to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital from the Queen Victoria pub in Burnley and he has also repeatedly taken boxes belonging to Pendleside Hospice.

Mason, who has been a long-term drug addict and admits that stealing the boxes is like 'second nature' to him, has also served prison sentences in the Preston area for charity box thefts, usually from pub bars.

He was jailed by city magistrates there last November for taking a Poppy Appeal charity tin from a sandwich shop in Preston, after he had been identified via CCTV footage.

Police investigating some of his previous thefts have labelled him as 'callous, despicable and beneath contempt'. He is known to have more than 100 offences on his criminal record.