Window cleaner stole £2k from pensioner

JAILED FOR 3 YEARS AFTER TARGETING VULNERABLE CUSTOMER

CASH saved to pay a vulnerable pensioner’s bills was stolen by her window cleaner leaving her feeling ‘dirty and violated.’

Burglar Michael Godber was given a three-year jail sentence for the offence.

He was also been banned from cleaning windows for five years after he stole more than £2,000 from an elderly customer.

Godber was handed a Criminal Behaviour Order for five years in light of his most recent offence.

It stops him from offering goods and services at any residential premises in England or Wales, and he must not to go round as a window cleaner or door-to-door, or enter certain areas on a map.

Judge John Burgess made the order after he heard the details of the burglary.

Godber knocked on the victim’s back door and told the 73-year-old he had come to clean the windows and would do “the outside and the inside windows”.

He went inside and sat on her sofa and she made him a cup of tea, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Later she showed him pictures of her late daughter as he sat on the end of her bed.

After he left, she noticed her jewellery case had been turned upside down and a pair of earrings were missing, as well as cash.

Godber, who had been cleaning her windows for a few months, was arrested at his home address where a bag of cannabis was found in a kitchen drawer.

The 39-year-old, of Church Hill, Kimberley, pleaded guilty to the burglary after he entered the house, in Halls Lane, Newthorpe, as a trespasser and stole £2,255 in cash and a pair of earrings on November 9, 2020. He also admitted possessing cannabis.

In a victim impact statement the pensioner, who lives alone in sheltered housing, said the money was to pay her bills.

She had never been in debt before and kept the money to ensure her bills were paid. Her washing machine and freezer need replacing but she does not have the sufficient funds to replace them.

The incident left her feeling very uncomfortable in her home, unable to sleep in her bedroom, and she had found herself in the living room in the early hours of the morning.

She felt “dirty and violated” at the thought of someone going in her home and going through her things.

Judge Burgess said that back in 2017 Godber received a 33-month prison sentence for deceiving vulnerable people and taking large sums of money from their bank accounts.

He had used blank cheques and persuaded them to sign and bank cards.

Of the most recent offence, he said Godber “stole a large sum of money and a pair of earrings” from a “vulnerable woman”.

“She has been extremely disturbed and distressed by what you did to her,” he added.

He told Godber, over a video link to HMP Nottingham, “it was high culpability, because you were deliberately targeting a vulnerable victim” and “you knew how old she was because you were cleaning her windows”.

He gave him a three-year sentence for the burglary, of which he will serve half in prison, and no separate penalty for the cannabis offence. Digby Johnson, mitigating, said Godber had previously been to the premises without any difficulty as a window cleaner and, on the day in question, he went to collect money owed for previous cleaning of windows. They had a discussion about a problem with her bathroom door. “He goes and looks at the bathroom door and establishes there is nothing he can do to correct the problem,” added Mr Johnson. His client accepted, at that point, he saw and took the cash but had no recollection of taking the earrings.

She has been extremely disturbed and distressed by what you did to her.

Judge John Burgess