A MAN from Warrington has been jailed for burgling a bungalow in the town and then fraudulently using a bank card that he had stolen from the address.
He was arrested little more than an hour after breaking into the property, Liverpool Crown Court was told.
Dale Roberts, of Old Liverpool Road, pleaded guilty to burglary and fraud by false representation.
The 29-year-old was jailed for 31 months and ordered to pay a £170 victim surcharge.
The charges relate dto an incident in the early hours of New Year’s Eve.
Shortly before 4am Roberts broke into a bungalow in Mullen Close while the occupants were asleep.
They were woken up by the sound of him leaving the property and discovered that an iPhone and a wallet had been stolen .
Police were notified and officers discovered that a bank card which was in the stolen wallet had been used to buy £30 worth of items from a supermarket.
They attended the supermarket, and after viewing CCTV footage of Roberts buying the items officers gave a description of him to the local authority employees controlling CCTV cameras in Warrington town centre. They subsequently located Roberts.
He was arrested at 5.15am – a little over an hour after he had broken into the bungalow.
After the hearing, Detective Constable Vicky Hancox said: “Burglary is a serious offence in which victims are targeted in the place they should be able to feel most safe…their own home.
“Being the victim of a burglary is always a deeply upsetting experience and it is even more traumatic when it occurs while you are at home.
“Thankfully, due to the swift work of officers investigating the burglary and the local authority’s town centre CCTV operators, in this case the offender was quickly identified and arrested and is now facing the consequences of his actions.
“This is Roberts’ third burglary conviction. I am pleased that he is behind bars where he can no longer pose a threat to residents’ homes and I hope that the custodial sentence imposed deters others from committing similar offences.”
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