A CAR thief who was caught out after twice leaving his DNA or fingerprints at the scene has been jailed for 32 months.

Burnley Crown Court heard how 21-year-old Jordan Woodburn left a nine-year-old girl scared to sleep at night after sneaking into her home, stealing the keys to her mother’s Volkswagen Jetta and driving it away.

Prosecuting, Peter Barr said that during the burglary at the house in Wheatley Lane Road, Fence, on August 9, Woodburn also stole a games console belonging to the child, mobile phones and a wallet.

The car belonging to Alison Balkas, which Mr Barr said was valued at around £4,000 or £5,000, was found crashed by the police the following day.

The court heard both the driver’s and front seat passenger’s airbags had deployed and Woodburn’s DNA was recovered from the driver’s side device.

Mr Barr said the prosecution had considered bringing charges against Woodburn in relation to the manner of his driving but a witness had described seeing somebody else driving shortly before the crash.

The court heard that just over a week after that incident Woodburn was involved in a second incident which resulted in a car being crashed.

The owner of that vehicle, Luke Woods, said he had left his BMW 320D secure outside his home in Colne Road, Sough, at around 11.10pm on August 19.

He awoke the following morning to find his car keys were no longer in the kitchen and his BMW was no longer parked outside.

He later received a phone call from the police to say his car had been found but it had been involved in a crash.

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Forensic investigations found Woodburn’s fingerprints on the rear view mirror.

Woodburn, who has three convictions for 13 offences, pleaded guilty to burglary and handling stolen goods. The court heard that Woodburn had only been freed from his last period in youth custody a matter of months before committing the burglary.

Defending, Gillian Kennaugh said her client, who worked for two years as a milkman, had only ever been given youth detention for his previous offences and has struggled with his first period in adult prison while on remand for these offences. Ms Kennaugh said the probation service were willing to engaged with Woodburn and urged Judge Sara Dodd to step away from sending her client to immediate custody.

She added: “He has never really been given an opportunity to deal with his offending in an alternative way to custody.”

Judge Dodd said she would be failing in her public duty if she didn’t send Woodburn immediately to custody and cited Ms Balkas’s victim personal statement in which she said her daughter no longer wanted to be alone in any room and couldn’t sleep at night because of the defendant’s intrusion into her home.

Jailing Woodburn for 32 months, Judge Dodd said: “The gravity of your offending is such that the sentence I have to impose in line with my public duty would not be suspendable.”

Woodburn, of Canal Street, Church, was banned from driving for 27 months.