Career burglar who walked free
NATHAN Hibberd has committed around 200 burglaries and brought ‘untold misery’ to his victims.
But after the 44-year-old career criminal stole a chainsaw in a house burglary in Painswick, Gloucestershire last year, a judge let him walk free.
It was the fifth time he had been convicted over burglaries since a USstyle three strikes and you’re out policy was introduced in 1999.
It stipulates that burglars convicted of breaking into private homes three times should get a minimum of three years in jail. Hibberd, from Gloucester,
admitted the Painswick burglary. But at Gloucester Crown Court last September, Judge Jamie Tabor QC instead gave him a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years.
The judge could see ‘green shoots’ that showed the thug – who has been involved in crime since he was 14 – was making an effort to change his life.
Hibberd was jailed for three and a half years in 1999 for 62 burglaries, for four years in 2001 for 54 burglaries, for four and a quarter years in 2005 for 41 burglaries, and for four and a half years in 2009 for 42 burglaries.