Burglar who targeted OAP is jailed for 7 years
Crook was paid to steal high value cars worth £500k -
Kevin King Yates burgled the couple after a ‘perfect circle’ was cut through a double-glazed window
JON MACPHERSON
APROLIFIC burglar who targeted a 71-year-old pensioner and his disabled wife in Accrington has been jailed for seven years.
Kevin King Yates broke into the victim’s home on Queens Road West and stole their Audi.
Prosecutor Andrew Ford told Burnley Crown Court how the man was woken by a ‘strange noise’
that cause him to ‘jump out of bed’.
He later found a ‘perfect circle’ had been cut through a double-glazed window in the dining room to steal the car keys.
The court heard that the Audi was caught on two speed cameras within 30 minutes of the theft.
In a victim impact statement the pensioner said: “It’s okay to have a burglar alarm but what do you do if it goes off at night?
“If I was in my thirties or forties then I would attempt to protect himself but being in my 70s [I did not] feel I had the option.”
The burglary was one of more than 50 incidents committed by Yates during a three-month spree with cars worth £500,000 being stolen.
The 25-year-old smashed his way into homes in the ‘more affluent’ parts of the county during a three-month spree, including Accrington, Whalley, Colne, Higham, Barnoldswick, Simonstone, Read and Burnley.
He was paid up to £1,500 to steal high value vehicles, including Audi’s, Mercedes and Volkswagens, and also made off with expensive watches, computer equipment, jewellery and mountain bikes, a court heard.
Lancashire Police believe he was stealing the vehicles to provide to illegal workshops, also known as ‘chop shops’, to be broken up and the parts sold on.
Yates had been ‘actively avoiding police’ by giving false names at hotels and moving between addresses across the region. It is believed he changed his mobile phone sim card more than 100 times to avoid detection.
After wanted appeals were circulated by Lancashire Police he was eventually tracked down to the Hilton Hotel in Blackpool.
Officers seized a knuckleduster and a small mobile phone wrapped in cling film during the ‘violent arrest’.
Yates, of Comrie Crescent, Burnley, pleaded guilty to five burglaries and three car thefts but asked the court for 51 other offences to be ‘taken into consideration’.
They included 21 ‘Hanoi-style’ burglaries in which intruders force their way into homes, take car keys and then steal cars from the driveways.
Mr Ford said the ‘campaign of burglaries’ was carried out between November 9 last year and January 25 this year.
Around 60pc of all burglaries committed during this period in East Lancashire were linked to Yates, the court was told.
In a ‘frank and candid’ police interview, Yates said he burgled the homes to steal the cars and would be paid up to £1,500 ‘for any decent vehicle stolen’.
Mr Ford said: “He has also admitted 51 other offences, many of which the police had not had the opportunity to investigate
“He said if he couldn’t find car keys then he would steal other valuables.
“There were others with him but he was always the intruder or one of the intruders.
“We recognise the importance of the defendant’s candour and he helped clear up a lot of unsolved and relatively serious crimes.
“The case has had a significant impact on ordinary home owners in these parts of East Lancashire.”
Defence barrister Mark Stuart said Yates, who has 34 convictions for 66 offences, accepts that a ‘custodial sentence is inevitable’ and has ‘ tried to provide a very clean sheet for himself upon his release’.
He said: “By and large the burglaries are very unprofessional. He has not travelled particularly far from the Burnley area.
“As regards to piece of mind, he has managed to clear up a considerable number of offences, many of which would not have been detected but for the defendant’s admissions to the police.
“Some of them they were completely unaware of and others they were aware of but wouldn’t have had anyone to deal with for it.