Burglar raided home of his girlfriend’s parents (From York Press)

Burglar Scott Berkley raided home of his girlfriend’s parents

7:50am Monday 29th October 2012 in News By Megi Rychlikova, megi.rychlikova@thepress.co.uk

A BURGLAR has been jailed for raiding the home of his girlfriend’s parents while they were out with their grandson.

Scott Berkley rarely went to the house in Walworth Street, off Leeman Road, York. But on June 3 police caught him in the enclosed back garden with a black bin bag full of electronic items from the property, said Helen Wheatley, prosecuting.

He had smashed part of a rear door to get inside.

Berkley, 37, of Wains Road, Dringhouses, was reluctant to go into the courtroom at York Crown Court. He called out from the dock and Recorder Simon Hirst twice warned him he would be sent down to the cells for the rest of the hearing if he did not keep quiet.

Berkley pleaded guilty to burglary and was jailed for 14 months.

The judge said: “He knows the house, he was wearing gloves in June.”

Berkley’s barrister Kate Bisset said: “The consequences have been far-reaching. The parents of his girlfriend no longer allow their daughter to go to the house.”

Ms Wheatley said Berkley was caught because a neighbour spotted him at the house and alerted police. He has several previous convictions for house raids, the earliest of which dates back to 1997.

Miss Bisset said Berkley regarded the burglary of his girlfriend’s parents’ home as “his rock bottom”. The raid had shocked him into giving up his heroin habit, but he had turned instead to another habit of his – alcohol.

She said he and his girlfriend who had also come off heroin and they were motivated together to start a life free of drugs.