Cell door slams shut on raider

A SERIAL burglar caught trying to flee from police has been locked-up for 40 months.

Tommy O’Connor (22) of Gorse Avenue, Alt, was acting as look out during a raid on the home on Titchfield Road, Oldham, in January.

Householder Zahid Abbas had only just left the property to go out for the evening, when neighbours heard three loud bangs.

One looked out of the window to see a man in the back garden, and an object, which turned out to be a television set on a window sill.

A second neighbour saw another male on the property, and police were called.

Kate Hammond prosecuting, said when officers arrived they saw two men and a woman climbing back over a garden fence, and they managed to arrest O’Connor.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told the 22-year-old had a lengthy record and had already served two terms of detention for burglary.

Sentencing him, Recorder Charles Garside QC, told him: “You have committed burglary after burglary, and it is my public duty to sentence you to a minimum of three years.”

O’Connor, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of burglary, was jailed for a total of three years and four months.

Steve Sullivan defending, said O’Connor had been frank in admitting that alcohol and cocaine abuse had been the catalyst for his involvement in the offence.

He said: “He has seen few Christmases and birthdays at liberty and now wants to break this cycle of offending behaviour.

“His girl friend has left him because he has spent so much time locked up, which has brought home to him the fact that he is wasting away his youthful years.”