A KEYLESS reveller is starting 12 months in jail after he tried to get back into his home using a ladder at 2.40am.

An eye-witness thought Andrew John Waterson was a burglar and summoned police to Skelton Court, Clifton, said prosecutor David Garnet,t at York Crown Court.

The 39-year-old, with 105 previous convictions, reacted so badly to the police presence, it took five officers to bring the kicking, screaming man under control.

"You have pleaded guilty yet again to a series of offences that reflect your complete disregard for any ideas in our society for good behaviour," Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told Waterson.

"There is nothing that can be sensibly done by the defence to stop this court from doing its duty. Some court has to."

He jailed him for three months, plus nine months previously suspended for benefit fraud.

Waterson pleaded guilty to a public order offence and causing criminal damage to a police cell.

For Waterson, Iftikhar Ahmed said his client did not have his house key with him, but had an arrangement to wake up a neighbour who did have a key when he returned from his night out.

"This is something he has adopted in the past," said Mr Ahmed. "Unfortunately for him, police were called.

"He tried to explain to the police exactly what he was doing, but he felt that the police officers didn't want to hear anything from him."

The court was told Waterson regretted his actions.

He had been out with friends for the first time since his 15-year-old daughter had come to live with him and had got drunk. His parental responsibilities had led to him changing his lifestyle and he had got part-time work.

"I have rarely seen a record so bad," Judge Durham-Hall said.

"I have rarely seen someone treated with such leniency over the years."

Waterson's 105 previous convictions included eight for public order offences and ten for damaging property.

He got the suspended sentence at York Crown Court in November for claiming £11,790 in benefit while doing six jobs at different times over a three-year period.


Benefit fraudster

Andrew Waterson claimed a disability living allowance, income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit on the grounds that he had an injured arm that stopped him working.

But the car valet still managed to do six jobs at different times between May 2002 and 2005, thus netting £11,790 of taxpayers' money he was not entitled to, York Crown Court heard in November.

Defence barrister David Dixon said Waterson had needed the money to support his family and towards the end of the period had been helping his partner fund her drug habit.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst decided the five benefit offences Waterson admitted, plus 273 similar offences taken into consideration, merited a nine-month prison sentence.

He suspended the sentence because jailing him could mean Waterson's teenage daughter would have to go into care and because the Department of Work and Pensions had waited 18 months before prosecuting him.

However, once Waterson admitted another offence committed during the two-year suspension period, another judge could jail him - and did.