Hartlepool burglar jailed after telling victims: 'I’ll come back and burn your house down'

Shaun Wilson, 35, was chased away when he woke up sleeping couples in two Hartlepool homes 24 hours apart.

The drug addict, who was on licence from prison for previous burglaries, threatened both: “If you come after me I’ll come back and burn your house down.”

He was holding a hammer as he turned on one woman, who said that she could not sleep for weeks afterwards as she roamed her home checking it for fires, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Judge Chris Smith said that it was a “vile” threat that left his victims terrified.

At 5am on May 18 last year a couple were awakened by a loud bang downstairs at their home off Hart Lane, Hartlepool, said prosecutor Cainan Lonsdale.

She found a man crouched inside their conservatory holding the hammer and after he left them with the threat they found that tools worth £1,000 had been taken from their garage.

The next night Wilson woke up another couple when their dog barked as he tried to burgle a second house nearby.

He knocked the woman over as she attempted to stop him, repeating his threats, and he caused £1,050 damage to their Nissan Qashqai car by scratching it as he rode off on his bike.

She said later: “I live in fear that he will come back.”

Wilson had 16 convictions for 48 offences.

Stephen Constantine, mitigating, that Wilson was under police investigation for the offences when he was jailed last August for other attempted burglaries and burglaries and he could have been sentenced for them at the same time.

He said Wilson was not under investigation for any more offences.

The judge told Wilson “this is a miserable state of affairs” and added: “You woke the residents inside and as they chased you off their property you threatened them with the vile threat that if they continued chasing you you would return and burn their house down.”

Wilson of Gatesgarth Close, Hartlepool, was jailed for three years and eight months after he pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two attempted burglaries, two counts of threatening to commit criminal damage to the houses, assault and criminal damage to the car.