COUPLE FOUND MONKEY DUST USER IN LOUNGE
Burglar jailed for targeting city properties
SHOCKED homeowners returned from a trip to London - to find burglar Karl Hall had moved into their home.
The couple noticed the front door of their Burslem property had been forced open.
And when they went inside they found the 34-year-old monkey dust user in their living room.
The pair confronted him but Hall claimed he was living at the address.
The police arrived and arrested the defendant who gave a false name but he was recognised by an officer in custody.
Hall – who has 34 previous convictions for 97 offences – was bailed but less than two weeks later he was caught red-handed climbing through a bathroom window of a house in Hanley.
The terrified householder barricaded herself in her bedroom until police arrived.
Now the defendant, of no fixed address, has been jailed for two years and nine months at Stoke-on-trent Crown Court.
Prosecutor David Bennett said a couple returned to their home in Nile Street at 8.45pm on August 19.
Mr Bennett said: “They entered and found the defendant in the living room. He was confronted and claimed he was living at the premises. The two occupants rang the police and they attended.
“The defendant gave false details and it was only when he was recognised by a detention officer that his true identity became known.”
In his police interview the defendant said he was living at the address and was given the key by someone he declined to name.
He was bailed and then burgled a house in Portland Street, Hanley, on September 1.
Mr Bennett said: “The female complainant lived at the address with two young children. She heard some noises at the rear of the property.
“She heard some voices talking and called 999. She went to the rear of the property and saw a man half way through the bathroom window.
“The defendant dropped in the room and looked at the woman. She ran back to the bedroom and barricaded the door.
“The police attended promptly and the defendant was sitting on a sofa at the rear of the premises. He was detained and arrested.”
Hall pleaded guilty to two offences of burglary.
The offences placed the defendant in breach of a six-month suspended jail sentence he received on August 21 for possession of a knife in public.
Nick Tatlow, mitigating, said the defendant was affected by monkey dust when he committed the offences.
Mr Tatlow said: “He is genuinely sorry for what he did.
“He moved into the first property and would have stayed there had the householders not returned.
“His drug of choice changed to monkey dust and it had even more influence on his life than the heroin he was taking previously. He wants to get free of drugs and not go back to heroin and monkey dust.”
Jailing Hall, Judge David Fletcher said: “You came face-to-face with the occupiers of the properties.
“You were under the influence of drugs at the time.”