Addict swiped valuables from cancer nurses
A DRUG addict who twice burgled The Christie and stole from staff has been jailed.
Troy Egan, 52, sneaked into the cancer hospital in Withington and swiped valuables in a bid to fund his heroin habit, a court heard.
He was caught when he tried to use a bank card he’d stolen from a nurse working the night shift at the nearby Sainsbury’s on Burton Road.
It is not the first time Egan, of Brookway, Burnage, has targeted cancer patients.
In 2011, he was jailed for trying to steal silver cups from a convent next to Francis House Hospice in Didsbury, used by nuns who look after terminally-ill patients. Jailing him for four years on that occasion, a judge said he had an ‘appalling’ criminal record and that the public needed to be protected from him.
On Friday, Egan pleaded guilty to his latest offences at Manchester Magistrates’ Court – two counts of burglary with intent to steal and a third of fraud by false representation.
Prosecutor Dylan Wagg said the first break-in happened on August 30 last year when
Egan took advantage of a door left ajar. CCTV showed him walking into a restricted area for staff and stealing two laptops worth an estimated £3,000.
On October 21, he again managed to sneak in without setting off the alarm and got into the staff locker room, Mr Wagg said.
He stole a handbag belonging to a nurse who had not long started on the night shift. Egan then attempted to make purchases totalling £19 in the nearby Sainsbury’s on Burton Road. Police were able to trace him as the offender and he was once again arrested and charged.
Shane Parkin, defending, asked the court to spare his client another prison sentence, saying: “It’s quite sad. [Egan] has an addiction to heroin stretching back 15 years that he has been battling. “Presently, it is a battle he is not necessarily winning.”
Egan is not currently employed and receives Universal Credit totalling £280 a month, Mr Parkin said.
District judge James Hatton said: “You can break it down to a simple sentence: you are burgling a cancer hospital; only custody is appropriate.” Egan was sentenced to 20 weeks for the first count burglary; 12 weeks for the second; and eight weeks for the fraud.
Judge Hatton