Thief stole £800 boiler (From Warrington Guardian)

Thief stole £800 boiler

A thief who broke into a number of homes to steal boilers has been sent to prison.

Andrew Sutcliffe, of Northway, Longford, admitted one charge of burglary at Warrington Crown Court on Friday but asked the court to take into account another 13 incidents where he broke into empty properties to steal the heating devices.

The court was told that the 24-year-old thought that a house on Toll Bar Road was also unoccupied when he broke into it. In fact the owner was away on holiday. Once inside he removed the Combi boiler worth £800 from the wall and took it away. He was caught after blood was found which matched his DNA.

Michael Davies, defending told the court that his client maintained that he thought the property was not in use when he broke into it, that he was beginning to face up to his problems and that he had entered a prompt guilty plea.

Judge David Hale sentenced him to 14 months in prison. He said: "You have been deliberately dishonest on a number of occasions, stealing boilers and causing great inconvenience."