A TEENAGER from Kemble who took part in a break-in at a country manor house has been spared a jail term.

Callum Sawczuk was part of a gang of masked raiders who targeted the £3.5million house in the village of Kington Langley, Wiltshire in November last year.

But after hearing the lad was only 17 when the raid took place and was being led astray by older offenders, a judge imposed a community order.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court today that the owners of the eight-bed home had builders in to renovate the Grade II listed property last year.

He said they were staying in a cottage in the grounds when they heard the burglar alarm going off, which they did not go to investigate.

When they went to the big house the following morning they found it had been broken into and the master bedroom and other parts of the house had been turned over.

As well as jewellery and electronic items, the raiders also took expensive handbags and even some of the power tools being used by the builders.

Mr Meeke said in the early hours of the following morning a PCSO came across a Citroen Saxo on fake plates in a farm entrance near Royal Wootton Bassett.

As he approached the vehicle he saw a barefoot man leap from the vehicle and run away.

In the car he found a large amount of the loot taken in the raid as well as crowbars and a balaclava with the defendant's DNA on it.

Sawczuk, now 18, of Clayfurlong Grove in Kemble, pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary.

Jonathan Lewis, defending, said it was accepted that his client, who was 17 at the time of the burglary, was not alone in carrying out the raid but was the only one caught.

He said a few months earlier he had been involved in another burglary with his father and another man, leading to them being jailed.

"I submit that there were two adults involved in this dwelling burglary and I say no more than that," he told the court.

Since his father's jailing he said he had become the man of the house and had a job in a kitchen where he is due to be promoted to chef.

Passing sentence, Recorder Maria Lamb said: "I am told you are quite a mature young man, that you have turned a corner and you are exhibiting signs of taking some responsibility for your life.

"If so, I am sure you are sensible enough to know that dwelling house burglary is something the courts look at very seriously indeed."

She imposed a one-year community order with 120 hours of unpaid work and said: "Make no mistake: this does have to be the turning of the corner."