A BURGLAR who climbed up a drainpipe into the bedroom of two tiny children in the middle of the night has been jailed for three years.

Raymond Harris, 20, claimed to a jury at York Crown Court that he was so high on drink and drugs that he went to the house in The Groves by mistake.

The jury took eight minutes to convict him of burglary, with intent to steal, on September 14.

Judge Jim Spencer QC told him: "It was the middle of the night, you were able to scale a high wall and then shin up a drainpipe and go in through the bedroom window of two very young children, and it was there you caused some noise and you alerted the householder."

"What you did that night was to alarm the children and terrify the occupants (of the house)," the judge said.

Harris, of Brailsford Crescent, Clifton, had denied burglary. He admitted possessing cannabis.

His barrister, Nicholas Barker, said that last September, Harris had been 19 and drinking a great deal because he had an alcohol problem. But with help he had been trying to overcome it.

The conviction was his first for burglary.

He had had difficulties in his childhood, but now had a loyal girlfriend who had sat through his trial.

Updated: 10:56 Saturday, May 17, 2003