A MAN who acted as a Good Samaritan when his neighbour returned home to find her house had been burgled has been jailed – after it turned out he was the thief.
Alan Middleton, 32, helped tidy and board up the ransacked property in Ewart Street in Saltney Ferry.
He was outraged at what had happened and told the victim – and his partner’s best friend – Nicola Shaw that if he knew who had done it then he would break their legs.
But Middleton’s fingerprint was found on an item in her ‘trashed’ bedroom – and he later admitted the offence.
The burglary occurred when the victim was away for nine days caring for her sick father.
At Mold Crown Court on Friday Middleton was jailed for 14 months.
Judge Niclas Parry branded it a nasty burglary and told him that he had been ‘picking on your own’.
Middleton had previously served a three-year term prison term for burglary, the court heard.
Simon Rogers, prosecuting, said Miss Shaw had lived in Ewart Street for six years.
It was while she was away acting as a carer for her father who had become ill that the burglary occurred.
She returned home to find property to the value of £1,200 had been stolen, and Middleton had helped her board up a broken window and get the house in order.
Miss Shaw thought she could trust her neighbour, who told her they were all ‘skint’ and ‘in the same boat’.
She later told police: “I could not believe that he had done that to me.”
John Philpotts, defending, said Middleton thought the property had been abandoned.
