Serial Black Country thief jailed for stealing charity tins

David Barnett struck at the Boots store in Dudley High Street during the early hours of November 13.

Police were alerted by a burglar alarm being activated at 3.20am, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

Officers found a glass panel in a door to the store had been smashed with a brick and there were bloodstains at the scene of the break in and on the counter from which the collection tins for Children In Need and Macmillan Cancer Support had been taken, explained Mr Geoffrey Dann, prosecuting.

The 39-year-old defendant did not get far and was quickly arrested in Dudley. He had a cut hand and shards of glass in his clothing.

The charity tins lay discarded nearby with their contents intact. It is not known how much money was in them.

Barnett, who had a string of previous convictions including ten for burglary of both dwellings and non dwellings, had taken a cocktail of drugs at a friend’s house before the break in, continued the prosecutor.

Mr Aftab Rashid, defending, said: “When the defendant was released from his last custodial sentence he had no intention to commit another offence. Then he took drugs.”

Barnett was under the influence of heroin, crack and cannabis when he staged the break in and can remember nothing about it, the court was told.

“He cannot understand why and what he did,” concluded Mr Rashid.

The defendant, who previously lived in Brierley Hill but is now of no fixed address, admitted burgling the shop and was locked up for four months.

Recorder Balraj Singh Bhatia told him: “You have written your own life story with your previous convictions.

"After you had been to a friend’s house, and were high on drugs, you stole two charity boxes.

"Those charities are much needed and well supported but when you were arrested you had discarded the tins and they were recovered intact.”