GPS tracker gave burglar away

A BUNGLING burglar who raided five houses while wearing a newly fitted GPS tracking device was yesterday jailed for eight years.

Career criminal Stuart Campbell, 42, had committed more than 200 burglaries in the past, and had been nicknamed The Creeper, thanks to his skill at stealing items from bedrooms as the occupants slept inches away. But his reputation for stealth deserted him after he agreed to have the satellite tracker fitted to his leg while on probation.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, data from the tracker allowed investigators to place Campbell at the scene of each of the burglaries.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard that he was fitted with the tracker in June after serving three years in jail for burglary.

The drug addict failed to charge it properly, but it started working despite this – and within hours of it being fitted, he went on a burglary spree in Waterloovile, Hampshire. Campbell, of Havant, Hampshire, admitted the five GPS-tracked crimes and asked for another 12 burglaries to be taken into consideration.