Jail for Wolverhampton burglar who stole family's snaps
A burglar who stole a family's treasured photographs and left them frightened to go out has been jailed for three years.
The mother of the household targeted in the raid said the family had lost irreplaceable wedding photos and hundreds of pictures of her three children.
Following the burglary, her children, aged five, four and two, would not go upstairs on their own and she was frightened to leave the house in case it was burgled again, a court heard.
Lee Heaven, aged 39, of Hobgate Road, Heath Town, Wolverhampton, admitted burglary in Woodsetton, and stealing items including a TV, laptop computer, games console, watch, camcorder and pillow case, worth a total of about £2,500.
He told police a friend had asked him to transport a TV he had bought and realised it was a burglary only when he arrived.
But Mr Paul Reid, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court that Heaven's blood was found on the frame of the kitchen window at the property, which had been smashed in the burglary on December 14. Heaven then admitted he had been inside the property.
The family, who had gone out at 2.30pm, discovered the burglary when they returned home at 6.40pm and could not get in because the door was bolted from the inside.
Heaven had been released on licence from prison for another burglary when the offence happened, the court heard.
Mr David Bratt, defending, said Heaven, a father of four, acknowledged that any intrusion into a person's property would cause distress.
