A MAN who broke into the home of an 89-year-old Co Down woman, ransacking it while she lay in bed, has been jailed.
Newry Crown Court heard that the incident happened at the pensioner’s Kilkeel home in January 2015.
John Connors (40) stole £80 and items of jewellery as part of a burglary spree by him and another man to fund his drug addiction.
Jailing the father-of-nine and ordering him to spend half his 33-month sentence in jail and half on licence, Judge Gordon Kerr QC told Connors it had been an “appalling series of offences.”
At an earlier hearing Connors, from Moatview in Kilmead, Co Kildare, entered guilty pleas to a total of nine offences including five counts of burglary and single counts of theft, possessing a weapon, criminal damage and assault with intent to resist arrest, all committed between 22-24 January 2015.
In an agreed statement of the facts, prosecuting counsel Fiona O’Kane described how the elderly woman was in bed when two men with their hoods pulled up, broke in through a rear bedroom window and ransacked her home.
Connors also admitted to stealing a caravan from outside a house in Rostrevor and a gaming console and controllers from a Kilkeel Youth Club.
In one of the other incidents at a house in Ballynahinch, where the pair tried to steal a caravan, the home owner confronted the burglars and used his car to try to block their escape but they rammed it out of the way using the silver jeep they were driving.
Connors and his accomplice were arrested, while still towing the caravan they had managed to steal, on the Kilbroney Road in Rostrevor and when Connors was searched, police uncovered a small black jewellery box taken from the pensioner’s home as well as a baton.
Both Connors and his accomplice had to be “forcibly removed” from the jeep and refused to answer police questions during interviews.
The delay in bringing the case to court was due to Connors breaching bail conditions by fleeing across the border but after he was jailed for other offences committed in the Republic, he was transferred north again.