A BURGLAR who used a 15-year-old boy “to do his dirty work” has been jailed for three years.

Fabian Turcanu, 27, toured North Yorkshire streets posing as a scrap metal merchant while carrying out house raids, said Matthew Collins, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

“The Crown’s case is that, from the van, the young boy would be deployed to try opportunistically various properties until achieving a result, he could return to the van with the loot,” he said.

Then Turcanu used bank cards stolen by the boy within minutes on a contactless basis to get items from garage shops. After his arrest he told police he was only doing what the boy had told him to do.

Turcanu, of Luxor View, Harehills, Leeds, pleaded guilty to two burglaries and two bank card frauds.

“You used a 15-year-old boy to do your dirty work and you tried to blame him when you were interviewed,” Judge Andrew Stubbs QC told him as he jailed him.

The boy, who had no previous convictions, failed to attend Leeds Youth Court after admitting the same two burglaries.

Mr Collins said Turcanu distracted a 72-year-old Rawcliffe householder on May 11 by discussing possible scrap metal items that he could take from her garage, while the boy sneaked into her house and stole her handbag.

But she realised what had happened after they left and alerted police who caught the pair heading towards Leeds on the A64.

For Turcanu, Alex Menary said he did work as a scrap metal dealer and was the sole breadwinner for his wife and seven children, aged nine months to nine years.

He had been in the UK for 10 years, during which time he had always worked. He had not been in trouble with the police since 2015.

Mr Collins said Turcanu had convictions for theft in London, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.