12:53pm Friday 19th March 2010
By Wendy Barlow
A PROLIFIC thief who raided a woman’s house twice has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.
Drug addict James Disley, 42, went out to steal 24 times and had a long record for petty crime, a court heard.
He helped himself to a Playstation, games and some silver shoes after smashing the kitchen window at the victim's home in Lindsay Street, Burnley, the town's crown court heard.
Days later he returned to the property, which had been boarded up, and stole a TV.
Disley, of Harold Avenue, Burnley, admitted burglary and asked for 23 offences – 19 thefts of diesel from cars, two factory burglaries, one theft from a skip and one house burglary – to be considered.
Judge Beverley Lunt told him: “To go back to this poor lady's house and burgle it again is so serious that you know it can only be a custodial sentence.” Sarah Statham, prosecuting, said the house raids would perhaps not have been discovered if Disley had not told police what he had done.
Officers went to Harold Avenue at the defendant’s request and he told them he had committed the burglaries while drunk.
None of the £575 haul had been recovered. Disley had two previous convictions for burglary and had been to prison.
Richard Taylor, for Disley, said his life had been dominated and ruined by drugs from an early age.
The solicitor said: "I have told him that if he continues the lifestyle that he has he will probably kill himself.
"He has got to do something about it."
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