A BURGLAR responsible for a string of offences was caught after seriously injuring himself falling from the roof of a York pub.

Leeds Crown Court heard Iain Stuart Thompson dropped to the ground after a section of guttering gave way when he was trying to break in to the Three Cranes Inn in St Sampson’s Square.

Police found him lying prone with a broken hip and other fractures, still wearing grey socks over his hands and his hooded top tight around his face on October 8 last year.

Philip Morgan prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court that Thompson was a burglar who specialised in getting into his targeted properties by climbing up drainpipes and in through upper windows or removing tiles on the roof.

He had been sentenced on five previous occasions for commercial burglaries.

On June 16 last year he was one of two men spotted on the roof of Thomas the Baker in Northallerton High Street.

Police were called and the intruders were found to have got in through the roof but the safe which they had stolen was recovered from a nearby alleyway after they were disturbed. He was linked through blood left at the scene.

On the evening of September 25 the alarm went off at Poundworld in Kirkgate, Leeds and £30 cash was found missing from petty cash after Thompson got in an upper window after climbing scaffolding on an adjacent building.

The following day he got into the Crime Reduction Initiative office in Great George Street, Leeds which assists homeless people and stole £90 having climbed a drain pipe in a rear yard and got in a first floor window.

He then caused £600 damage removing slates to reach in and open the skylight of the Crown tattoo parlour in Leeds before stealing £300.

On October 5 he climbed a drainpipe and got in through a window at Raja’s takeaway in New Briggate, and forced the safe open stealing £3,000.

Shortly before his arrest Thompson also caused £850 damage at Brown’s department store in Davygate, York, removing tiles trying to get inside.

Staff discovered rubble on the floor of a third floor stock room and a two foot square hole in the ceiling, said Mr Morgan.

Michael Smith representing Thompson said he had to undergo surgery for his injuries after his fall in October. “He tells me he has had enough of long prison sentences and intends this to be his last.”

Thompson, 41 of Oak Tree Walk, Gipton, Leeds admitted the burglaries and criminal damage at the pub and was jailed for a total of four years four months.

Sentencing him the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said: “You are what used to be described as a cat burglar who climbs up the outside of buildings using drain pipes.”

He had caused hundreds of pounds in damage in his recent series of offences.