Greedy burglar jailed for four and-a-half years

A 34-year-old man has been jailed for four and-a-half years after committing a string of burglaries in Warrington and Runcorn.
Grzeogorz Konopka, of Burlington Road in Slough pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown court to four burglaries and two counts of fraud.
The court was told his burglaries took place between January 2016 and May last year.
On New Year’s Day the owner of a house on Exmouth Crescent in Runcorn found blood, which turned out to be Konopka’s, the glass of his back door.
Konopka had smashed and opened the kitchen window and stolen a number of items including money, a TV, laptop, a games console and jewellery. He had also forced open the door of a shed.
In March last year Konopka broke into a house on Hardy Street in Warrington by forcing open the front door. Inside, he opened all cupboards in the kitchen and pulled out the drawers in the bedroom before stealing a TV. Droplets of his blood were also found in this house.
Konopka was later found to have attempted to sell the TV at two local pawn shops.
A month later Konopka targeted a house on Long Lane in Warrington by forcing open the back door. He searched the house and stole bank cards which he later used at a number of shops in Warrington.
Konopka also left a discarded cigarette at the top of the stairs and four cans of beer in the kitchen.
In May last year he stoke a bike from an address on Whitefield Road in Stockton Heath. His DNA was recovered from a bottle of wine he discarded in the garden.
Konopka was arrested in December in Slough.
Detective Sergeant Ian Bingley, from Warrington Local Policing Unit, said:
“Konopka was a greedy burglar but not clever when it came to avoiding detection.
“He left traces of his blood at two of the houses he targeted as well as DNA on a cigarette and an alcohol bottle he discarded at another house. No one should be made to feel unsafe because someone has intruded into the one place they should feel secure.
“Thankfully Konopka is now behind bars and his burglary spree has come to an end.”