HOMELESS Paul Dean stole a coat from a Leamington house he had broken into to sleep.
He was jailed for three years and four months after Warwick Crown Court heard that he had no fewer than 17 previous domestic burglaries among the 94 offences on his record.
The 48 year-old, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to six charges of burglary, one of going equipped for theft and asked for three other offences to be taken into consideration.
Prosecutor Mark Phillips said a woman had left her home in Shrubland Street, to go away for a break over the New Year, and as she let herself back in on January 7 she heard a noise from the living room.
There was no-one in the room when she went in, but the television was still one and it appeared someone had been living there in her absence.
Various items of property were missing, including a coat which Dean, whose blood had been found in the bathroom, was wearing when he was arrested a few days later.
Dean said he had been told it the Shrubland Street house was vacant and he could go and live there with others who were already at the address.
Tim Sapwell, defending, in relation to the Shrubland Street burglary, said: “The principal reason was to find somewhere to live while homeless. The house had not only been burgled, but slept in.”
Mr Sapwell added the blight of Dean’s life had been a heroin addiction, and in October last year he had become homeless after falling behind with his rent.
