AFTER trying without success to collect money from his customers, window cleaner Daniel Cox broke into a house and stole jewellery which he planned to sell to raise the cash he needed.
But he was arrested after a neighbour’s description led to a police officer recognising him as the intruder.
And the 34 year-old of Craven Street, Southam, was jailed for 29 months after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to that burglary and asking for two others to be taken into consideration.
Prosecutor Jason Pegg said around mid-morning on January 19 Cox knocked on the door of a house in Troutbeck Avenue, Leamington.
Once he had established no-one was at home, he went round to the back of the house where he threw a slab through the dining room window and climbed inside.
Cox then went upstairs where he searched the drawers in both bedrooms and took a pencil case with a number of items of jewellery in it.
But a neighbour had heard the noise of him breaking in so called the police and saw Cox fleeing as she did so.
And when a police officer in plain clothes spotted him a few minutes later about half a mile away, Cox made a run for it when the officer tried to speak to him. He was caught after a brief chase.
When he was interviewed he said he had been walking round the Milverton area trying to collect money from householders on his window cleaning round because he needed to get some money to his ex-partner.
But he had not been successful, so he had decided to break into the house to steal items he could sell to raise the cash he needed.
Cox, a ‘third strike’ burglar, went on to admit he had carried out two other burglaries at houses in Leamington ten days earlier, which he asked to be taken into consideration.
Nick Devine, defending, said all the property had been recovered, and he had made a full admission.
