Burglar caught soaking wet after targeting Hartlepool house to steal copper piping

Cameron McLeod, 34, from Hartlepool, was not so much nabbed red-handed but soaked to the skin, said the judge who sentenced him at Teesside Crown Court.

McLeod was a burglar who targeted unoccupied houses to steal copper pipe to feed his drug addiction, said prosecutor Paul Reid.

Police found him on January 30 at the rear of a house in Harcourt Street, Hartlepool, where water was pouring out and he was arrested soaking wet.

Mr Reid told the court: “He said 'I went in but someone else had got the good stuff'.”

The damage caused was £1,000, and DNA checks from an earlier copper pie burglary on December 9 in Eddlestone Walk, Hartlepool, linked bloodstains to him. The damage there was £2,000 and the landlord had to delay handing the house over to a new tenant.

McLeod said that he had not been there and he did not know how his blood came to be there.

He had convictions for 35 previous offences, and the Crown said that both premises had been targeted.

Ian Mullarkey, defending, said that McLeod had expressed remorse during an interview with a probation officer for his pre-sentence report.

He said that McLeod's life had changed in March when he was given stable, secure housing and he had been given daily access to his two children by his former partner. His engagement with the probation service had been described as excellent.

Mr Mullarkey told the court: “If he lost his liberty he would lose his secure accommodation and and his former partner would not allow him access to his children.

"He has a lung condition and a hereditary heart condition."

Judge Jonathan Carroll told him that taking drugs is having an adverse impact on his life and the lives of other people.

The judge told the court: “You targeted those houses for the purpose of breaking into them.

"You were caught through your blood DNA.

"You were not so much caught red-handed you were soaking wet through ripping out copper piping when police attended.

"You are living proof that drugs cause harm. They cause harm to you, you are literally taking your life in your hands every time you take them. You cause harm to the two owners of the houses who try to go about an honest living simply by renting them out.

"The fact that you now have contact with your children may just be the motivation that you need.

"It may be that you are just one less person addicted to drugs."

McLeod, of Glamis Walk, Hartlepool, was given a 10 months jail sentence suspended for two years, drug rehabilitation for 12 months, 25 days rehabilitation requirements and a night time curfew for six months after he pleaded guilty to the two burglaries.

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