Dion Stanford was sentenced to 33 months at Swansea Crown Court
A BURGLAR who broke into the house of partially sighted and deaf woman in her 90s while she slept has been jailed.
Swansea Crown Court head Dion Stanford had been wandering around Port Talbot on the night in question, trying people's front doors and looking for properties he could enter and steal from.
He helped himself to jewellery, cigarettes and a bottle of whisky from the woman's house before walking out — but was tracked down after police found his fingerprints on a dictionary in the victim's home.
Stanford, of Hopkin Street, Port Talbot, pleaded guilty to the July 3 burglary when he appeared in the dock via videolink.
The 40-year-old also admitted another burglary on the same date — committed on the street where he lived — and asked for it to be taken into consideration.
Kevin Jones, for the prosecution, said Stanford entered the pensioner's house near Sandfields Primary School through a front door which, due to a fault, hadn't been locked properly.
The burglary was discovered by the victim after she woke up just after 5am and found the front door open.
This second offence involved Stanford going into a family house through an unlocked door just before breakfast time and taking a woman's purse and pictures of her children. The barrister read out a statement from the second burglary victim, saying she would never feel the same way about her family house again, and now wanted to move.
The court heard Stanford has previous convictions for burglary involving a similar patter of breaking-in through unlocked or unsecure doors, and that the July breaks put him in breach of a previously imposed suspended sentence.
Dean Pulling, for Stanford, said the defendant had not targeted the pensioner because of her age or vulnerability but had been out that night trying doors in the area looking ones that were unlocked.
He said Stanford was remorseful for what he had done, and had said in interview that he wanted to apologise to the woman "from the bottom of his heart".
The barrister added that the motivation behind the burglaries was the defendant's drug dependency.
Judge Peter Heywood told Stanford that courts always treated burglary seriously, adding that the effects on the pensioner of his actions that night must have been "catastrophic".
Stanford was sentenced to 32 months for the burglaries, and the judge activated one month of the previously imposed sentence to run consecutively, making a total of 33 months.
Read more: http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/burglar-broke-into-90-year-old-woman-8217-s-house-after-wandering-port-talbot-trying-people-8217-s-front-doors/story-29642918-detail/story.html#ixzz4I570DXhL
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