‘Corrosive influence on community’ jailed again
A PERSISTENT burglar who has contributed ‘little, if anything positive’ to society has been locked up again.
Josh Buxton, 30, targeted several businesses in Stockport, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. In one break-in at a coffee shop, he came into contact with a worker who was left ‘terrified’ by seeing Buxton, who was wearing a mask.
He has now been jailed for two years and five months, following a hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
Judge John Potter told fatherof-three Buxton: “You are nothing more or less than a corrosive influence on our community.”
The court heard how Buxton tried to break in to Pale bar in Heaton Moor in February last year.
Later in the month, he tried to burgle a beauty salon in Hazel Grove and a nearby hairdressers.
Then ,on September 1, at about 6.30pm after it had closed, Buxton broke into Rhode Island coffee shop in Stockport town centre. A female worker heard a noise and was confronted by Buxton, who had dropped a £100 cash float, prosecutor Geoff Whelan said.
She fled the shop, as did Buxton.
His face had been caught on CCTV before he put a mask on. On September 3, about £5,000 worth of camera equipment was stolen during a burglary at a video production company in Stockport.
Days later about £52,000 worth of computer and photography equipment was stolen during a break-in at a film company in Stockport. The business was able to track one of the computers and police went to the address, where they found some of the stolen items.
Computer equipment and security cameras were stolen during a break-in at a financial company in Stockport on September 6. Buxton was eventually caught in the early hours at a medical industrial equipment supplier in Stockport on September 27.
Only months earlier he had been released after receiving a 16-month sentence for a string of burglaries.
Defending, David Morton said Buxton suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and did not have his medication and ‘spiralled into a very dark place.’
Buxton, of The Bentleys, Lancashire Hill, Stockport, was jailed for two years and five months. He pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted burglary, three counts of burglary and two counts of receiving stolen goods.