A PROFESSIONAL burglar who subjected a 93-year-old man to a “horrifying, terrifying ordeal” in his own kitchen has been jailed.

Michael Andrew Hester broke into the elderly man’s Holgate house at around 5am, a jury heard at York Crown Court.

Roused by the noise, the victim went downstairs and saw Hester in his kitchen.

Hester, 46, has more than 150 convictions and had been stealing and burgling since he was 14 years old, said Michael Cahill, prosecuting. Hester denied a charge of burglary but was convicted by a jury.

Four months after the Acomb raid, Hester, taking his son with him, tried to burgle an elderly woman in Dringhouses.

“The distress and the worry and the heartache that you cause to people like (the 93-year-old) cannot be overstated,” Recorder Alistair McDonald QC told Hester. “It must have been a horrifying and terrifying ordeal for this gentleman to be put through.”

After hearing that Hester had served a three-year sentence for the Dringhouses attempted burglary since the Holgate raid, he jailed him for two and a half years for burgling the 93-year-old man’s house.

A friend of the man said: “My neighbour, who is now 95 years old, will be very relieved to learn of the guilty verdict and sentence. His house is now upgraded for security, and any likely intruders will be detected.”

During his trial, Hester told the jury he had been homeless, but had spent the time of the burglary with his wife at a Holgate hotel.

“There was a king-sized bed, so we made the most of it,” he claimed.

But the jury heard he left a glove with his DNA in the Holgate man’s kitchen and when police tracked his phone movements, they revealed he had been out of the hotel for hours that night.

Investigator Dave Pegg, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “This case demonstrates the lengths we will go to identify offenders and bring them to justice.

“We are absolutely committed to investigating burglaries in North Yorkshire and arresting and charging those responsible.”