AFTER fleeing empty-handed when he was disturbed while burgling an elderly pensioner’s Cubbington home, Peter Devoisey went on to break into a house in a nearby village.
And a judge heard at the time the former Warwick man was already on bail for an earlier burglary in which he had also been disturbed by the occupier returning home.
The 29 year-old now of Ridgethorpe, Willenhall, Coventry, was jailed for a total of three years and eight months after he pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to three burglary charges.
Devoisey, previously of St Michael’s Road, Warwick, had been granted bail following a burglary opposite his Coventry home in November 2015, but in April this year he broke into a house in Cubbington, by forcing open a ground floor patio door.
But he fled without taking anything when the 83-year-old owner, who had just popped out for half an hour, returned while he was still inside.
Prosecutor Ian Windridge said within half an hour of leaving the house in Cubbington, Devoisey broke into a house two miles away in Weston-under-Wetherley, while the owner was at work, and stole more than £5,000 worth of property including jewellery, laptop computers, phones and currency.
Mr Windridge said Devoisey had 14 convictions for 31 offences, ‘including offences against the person and dishonesty.’
Jamie Strong, defending, said: “His record shows that between 2010 and 2016, apart from one matter of burglary to which he pleaded guilty today, he was offence-free in the community.
“It’s the longest period he’s had without offending since he started offending. He has the record of someone who has had an addiction to drugs, on and off, for a long period.”
Jailing Devoisey, Judge Richard Griffith-Jones told him: “I am afraid you have to understand that the courts are going to bear down heavily on people who break into people’s homes.
“It is a very distressing thing for people whose property is broken into.”
