Man who stole around £20 of frozen meat from Birmingham home jailed
A man who stole meat from a freezer during a burglary because he was hungry has been jailed for more than a year for a range of offences.
Dishon Burgess took a range of frozen meat worth £20 – and a woman's purple bike during a raid on Crantock Road in Birmingham.
After the burglary, on March 31, the 28-year-old carried out two other raids at two homes on Pendragon Road on April 1.
He stole a PlayStation and mixer deck with his accomplice, but he dropped the items at the side of the house and left them there.
Burgess tried to burgle another house on the road by forcing entry to a garage and taking out two mountain bikes.
The bikes were found in a nearby alleyway after an alert homeowner called the police, with Burgess escaping.
West Midlands Police officers trawled through CCTV to find the burglar, who fled to Essex and was arrested in Colchester at the end of April.
In a police interview Burgess admitted taking the meat because he was hungry – but denied stealing a bike.
Burgess, of no fixed address, was jailed for 12 months for robbery and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £149 in a separate offence in Erdington in February.
He was further jailed for six months to run consecutively for the three burglaries at a hearing of Birmingham Crown Court on June 23.
Pc Mohammed Ali, from the Perry Barr and Oscott neighbourhood team, said: "I am glad to see that this man, who clearly had the motivation to continue his run of burglaries, was stopped in his tracks before more homeowners were caused unnecessary stress."
"A year and a half is quite a substantial amount of time behind bars and I hope this offers at least some comfort to the residents in the area that we are committed to tackling such criminals and keeping our neighbourhoods safe."
