Burglar arrested 14 years on as he flies to UK for birthday party
AN expat father who flew back to Birmingham for a surprise birthday party was arrested when he touched down – 14 years after admitting his role in a burglary.
And bricklayer Lloyde Walmsley was told he could not return to his wife and child in Australia until he had served his punishment.
The 39-year-old, who used to live in Greenleigh Road, Yardley, was given a 12-month community order, with 200 hours of unpaid work to be completed before returning to his family.
Ian Windridge, prosecuting, said the offences dated back to February 2004 when a couple living in Plymouth Road, Redditch, were disturbed by a noise at 2.45am.
Two intruders fled with the keys to their £26,000 Audi A3, and the car was driven away, followed by a BMW in which the burglars had arrived.
Five minutes later, police saw the BMW at the Sainsbury’s island on the outskirts of Redditch, where it was involved in a collision.
The two occupants, Walmsley and a man named Nicholls, escaped on foot, but were caught. In May 2004 Walmsley pleaded guilty to the burglary and the theft of the car, but Nicholls denied the charges, so the case was adjourned for his trial.
Nicholls, who had a long record for burglaries, later changed his plea to guilty and was jailed for four years in December 2004 at a hearing which Walmsley failed to attend, leading to the warrant for his arrest. But Warwick Crown Court heard he travelled to Australia in 2008, four years after the burglary.
The court was told that even a suspended prison sentence could affect Walmsley being able to go back to Australia, where he had a wife and child and has built up his own business.
Anthony Bell, defending, said that the pre-sentence report on Walmsley in 2004 was favourable and had recommended a rehabilitation order. “But having been to jail once before, albeit five or six years earlier, he was frightened about the possibility of going back, and was not thinking very clearly,” he said. “Alcohol played a significant part in his life at that time.
“He went home and stayed at home with his mother and carried on working. The knock on the door never came.”
Mr Bell said Walmsley had not fled to Australia to escape the court, but was a bricklayer, and when the recession hit in 2008, applied for a visa to go there.
He had remained there ever since, building up a business which employed three people.
But he returned earlier this month to attend a surprise birthday for his uncle, and was arrested at the airport.
Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told Walmsley: “You came into court today with your bag packed.
“Had you been here, as you should have been, in 2004, your life would have been very much easier, and you would have got this behind you.
“No-one suggests you fled to Australia to avoid this, because you were in this country for four years before you went to Australia 10 years ago and started to begin a new life.
“You are a completely different man from the 25-year-old who committed this serious burglary in 2004, at a time when you went off the rails.
“It is likely you would have been dealt with by something other than an immediate sentence. You also have to be dealt with for your failure to attend.”