POLICE managed to link a Bolton drug addict with a £6,000 stolen car after matching his DNA with a bottle found in the vehicle.

Darren Anderson, aged 25, of Salford Street, Heaton, pleaded guilty to taking the vehicle without the owner's consent at Bury magistrates court yesterday. He was given a two-year conditional discharge.

Prosecuting, Mrs Anna Morris said that it was one night in April of this year that the car's owner, Gary Seddon, left the car secure and undamaged on the driveway of his Bradley Fold home in Radcliffe. When he got up the following day, it had gone.

Mrs Morris added that exactly a week later the Nissan was found parked up in Bolton. The number plates had been changed and several stickers and other identifying features had been removed.

However, when they searched the vehicle, police found the bottle which later linked Anderson with the crime.

On his behalf it was said that the offence, like others around that time, was directly connected to his long-standing heroin habit.

However, since then he had narrowly survived a drug overdose and as a result had actively sought help, which he was continuing to take advantage of.