A bogus caller from Bilston who conned his way into an 86-year-old’s home and stole £200 from her bedroom has been jailed for three years.
Drug user Simon Peter Doherty showed the pensioner a fake identification pass and pretended he was from the water board when he knocked on the door in July last year.
Telling her a pipe had burst and that he needed to run the taps, prosecutor Miss Shenaz Muzaffer said the 24-year-old looked around the kitchen and then said he needed to do the same upstairs.
Minutes later a vigilant neighbour came to investigate after she spotted Doherty entering the woman’s Coventry home.
Doherty, and another man who had entered the property after him, ran off and when the pensioner went upstairs, she discovered £200 had been stolen.The police only caught up with him in October when the neighbour spotted him in the same street and dialled 999.
He was picked out of an identity parade and yesterday pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to a charge of burglary.
Miss Muzaffer added that Doherty, of Chillington Place, had an extensive record for dishonesty and driving matters, including one for a house burglary for which he was jailed for 21 months in 2003.
David Mason, defending, said: “It is not a case in which I am going to ask you to let him out.
“He has been in custody now for nearby seven months, and he acknowledges that is not enough for this serious distraction burglary.”
He said that Doherty, who was appalled at what he had done, was determined to get his life back on track, and had been doing numeracy and bricklaying courses while on remand in prison.
Jailing Doherty, Judge Christopher Hodson told him: “This is a serious matter. You burgled the house of an 86-year-old woman. You were clearly going to take advantage of any person who could be taken advantage of.”
By Paul Beard
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