A TRAVELLING burglar broke into a Japanese tourist couple’s hotel room during a two-day Lake District crime spree.
Heavily-convicted Bradley Higham, 42, committed a host of offences on October 8 and 9 in 2018 around both Windermere and Bowness-on-Windermere.
Higham burgled an unoccupied room at the Bellsfield Hotel in Bowness just after Japanese husband-and-wife tourists had checked in. “They returned to their room and discovered some of their luggage was unpacked,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Carlisle Crown Court. “Initially they didn’t think anything had been stolen.
“Subsequently the wife discovered medication which had been in a transparent bag had been taken. This was painkiller medication for back issues.”
That stolen medication was found along with a screwdriver in a caravan on a nearby site at which he was “staying” having pinched the door key from a staff area.
Higham also sneaked into two Windermere guest houses, stealing cash from one which he handed back to a staff member who caught him in the act and, at the other, cheekily charged bottles of Budweiser he consumed in a lounge to one of the rooms.
A day later, he stealthily moved a CCTV camera inside Windermere Library to mask the fact he was forcing opening a charity box before stealing £30.
“Mr Higham was arrested and interviewed. The interview can be summarised as a series of denials,” said Mr Rogerson. “In fact he denied even being in the county at the time these offences were committed.” But he added: “There were various pieces of CCTV at the premises capturing his likeness.”
Higham, of Laurel Avenue, Newton-le-Willows, was sentenced after admitting three counts of burglary, and also fraud, theft and going equipped.
A man with 150-offences to his name, he was jailed for 876 days by Judge Nicholas Barker who noted the defendant had expressed a desire at a previous court hearing to spend less of his life behind bars.
“The reason you are spending so much time in prison is because you keep burgling buildings, properties, businesses, dwellings,” said Judge Barker. “That’s why you keep going to prison.”
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