A drunken burglar who waved at his victim’s CCTV camera before breaking into their home has been jailed for two years.
Andrew Conn, 37, raided two rural homes in York on the same afternoon – going from one location to the other on a drunken bike ride along the A64.
He cycled up to each remote property on his bicycle, nonchalantly propped the bike up outside their homes, then snaked into the properties through windows in broad daylight, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Victoria Ball said that Conn began his burglary spree at a cottage farmhouse near Haxby on the afternoon of 29 September when he stole a PlayStation 5 console and three controllers.
Ms Ball said the male householder, who was away at the time, received a phone call from his partner to say that the PlayStation had disappeared from near the TV.
When he returned home at 2.30pm, police were already at the property and told him that the games console and the controllers, together worth about £600, had been stolen in a burglary.
Officers told him that an “unknown” individual had been captured on CCTV dismounting from a bicycle and breaking into their house after opening a front window.
After barely three minutes inside the property, Conn ran out of the front door clutching his loot which he had stuffed inside a blue cushion cover which he had also stolen from the house.
He then cycled away from the property as officers searched the area and received a report of a man matching Conn’s description riding a bicycle “unsteadily” along the A64 towards the Hopgrove roundabout.
By this time, Conn had already committed his second burglary of the afternoon at a remote detached property just off the A64 on the outskirts of York.
Ms Ball said that Conn casually propped his bike up against the garden gate and wandered up to the house.
The victim’s CCTV showed Conn walking up to the front of the property, looking up at the security camera and then “waving at it twice”.
He then walked round to the back of the property and spotted a second CCTV camera at the back door. CCTV footage showed him interfering with the camera and then unplugging it.
“He then picks up a folding saw and opens the door of the storage shed and looks inside,” added Ms Ball.
“Another CCTV camera shows him picking up a plastic garden chair and moving it from the front of the property to the side.
“He then enters the property by using a rock to smash the living-room window and uses the plastic garden chair to climb up (and) get in through the window. Once inside, he takes an Apple watch and a charger.”
‘Aggressive’ on arrest
Officers were by now scouring the A64 on the look-out for Conn and spotted the burglar’s bike propped up against the garden gate of the plush house he had just burgled.
“The bike had bags fastened to it including the cushion cover containing the PlayStation 5,” said Ms Ball.
Officers spoke to a workman nearby who said that a man had just tried to sell him a PlayStation and that he looked “intoxicated”.
They found Conn at the back of the property at about 2.30pm – at the same as other officers were consoling the victims of the first burglary.
Conn was “aggressive” upon arrest, forcing officers to use leg restraints to keep him under control.
They searched him and found the stolen Apple watch and charger.
The owner was informed and returned to the property where he found the living-room window “completely smashed” and that a CCTV camera had been detached from the wall.
Conn was duly arrested and taken into custody where he exercised his right to silence.
Ms Ball said that the male householder, who lived at the property with his wife and family, now felt worried about leaving the house “or going anywhere”.
She said the first victim who lived at the farmhouse near Haxby was “shaken and upset” while speaking to police.
Conn, of no fixed address, was charged with two counts of burglary and admitted the offences. He appeared for sentence today (18 November) after being recalled to prison.
Ms Ball said that Conn was on prison licence at the time of the burglaries after being given a 12-week jail sentence in August for breaching a court order.
He had 16 previous convictions for over 30 offences including acquisitive crime and damaging property, but there was nothing on his record for burglary.
Bizarrely, given that his mode of transport was a bicycle, Conn was living in supported accommodation in South Yorkshire at the time of the house raids in York and was now homeless.
Conn told the court: “I kept going to different places.”
His barrister Aimilia Katsoulakis said that Conn had mental-health problems and a long-standing, “unresolved” alcohol problem. He also had drug issues.
He had gone on the burglary spree on a “buzz of liberty” after being released from his previous prison sentence. He then “goes wild” on alcohol and criminality.
Judge Sean Morris said that although burglarising was a “one-off” for Conn, the offences were so serious that only an immediate prison sentence could be justified.
Handing the homeless drifter a two-year jail sentence, he told Conn: “What you need to do is lay off the booze and get a job.”
Conn will serve less than half of the two-year sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.
