'Jilted' burglar broke into 13 homes in just two months

Sean Wilson launched the one man crime wave weeks after being freed from a jail sentence imposed for another burglary, Wolverhampton Crown Court.

Days before being freed, 27-year-old Wilson had been told that the mother of his two children had started a relationship with another man, it was said.

He then committed 13 burglaries and an attempted burglary during August and earlySeptember, revealed Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting.

Wilson was caught at a second hand shop at 4.30pm on September 4 trying to sell a camera that had been stolen earlier in the day during a break in at a house in Thorns Avenue, Brierley Hill, Mr Searle said.

A rear kitchen window had been smashed to gain access to the property while the owner was out at work and other goods including electrical items had been stolen, the court heard.

Two weeks later Wilson asked for a further meeting with detectives during which he detailed a string of his other recent offences.

These included fleeing from a house in Corporation Street, Kates Hill with £200 cash after the owner came home while he was searching the place at 4pm on August 18. Eleven days later he took £400 worth of electrical goods from an address in Jackson Court, Brierley Hill while he was forced to escape empty handed after being disturbed trying to burgle a house in Halesowen Road, Netherton on August 8.

Wilson from Central Drive, Coseley, who had 28 previous convictions involving 66 offences, mainly for dishonesty, asked for nine other burglaries and an attempted burglary to be taken into consideration. At one of these he ran off after waking the occupant in a night time break in at an address in Acres Road, Quarry Bank , the court was told.

Mr David Houldcroft, defending, said: "A couple of days before his release from prison in June he heard the woman with whom he had had an 11 year relationship had struck up a new one with somebody else. He was not allowed to see their children and became depressed. He took drugs to blot out the pain and anger, needed money to buy them and is thoroughly ashamed that he returned to burglary to fund the habit."

Wilson was jailed for four years by Judge Michael Dudley who told him: "This sort of crime occurs where people should feel at their safest. It devastates them, leaving some angry and others frightened."