Coventry burglar thwarted in pensioner's home jailed for three years - The Coventry Observer

Coventry burglar thwarted in pensioner's home jailed for three years

Coventry Editorial 5th Jun, 2017   0

AFTER fleeing empty-handed when he was disturbed while burgling an elderly pensioner’s home, a Coventry man went on to break into a house in a nearby village.

And a judge heard that at the time Peter Devoisey was already on bail for an earlier burglary in which he had also been disturbed by the occupier returning home.

Devoisey (29) of Ridgethorpe, Willenhall, Coventry, was jailed for a total of three years and eight months after he pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to three burglary charges.

Prosecutor Ian Windridge said that in November 2015 a woman left her home in The Vale, Stoke Aldermoor, during the morning, and when she returned at lunchtime she noticed the leads to her X-box on the stairs.




“She then saw the defendant come running down the stairs and past her out of the house. He had the X-box in his arms, and he went across the road to the address where his partner lives.”

And Judge Richard Griffith-Jones commented: “So he was living across the road, and could see when she was out.”


The woman had recognised him, and when he was arrested Devoisey claimed he had previously left his coat at the house, so had gone there to retrieve it.

He said he had pushed through the bottom panel of the door to get in, and had gone upstairs and picked up his coat, not realising the X-box was under it.

Devoisey, previously of St Michael’s Road, Warwick, was granted bail, and on April 27 this year he broke into a house in Cross Lane, Cubbington, by forcing open a ground floor patio door.

But he fled without taking anything when the 83-year-old owner, who had just popped out for half an hour, returned while he was still inside.

A neighbour had seen a Peugeot 206, which it turned out had been bought by Devoisey a few days earlier but had false number plates on it, parked nearby.

Mr Windridge said that within half an hour of leaving the house in Cubbington, Devoisey broke into a house two miles away in St Michaels Close, Weston-under-Wetherley, while the owner was at work.

He got in by smashing a glass panel in the back door, and stole more than £5,000 worth of property including jewellery, laptop computers, phones and currency.

A CCTV camera from a nearby property showed the Peugeot arriving in St Michael’s Close at 10.48 that morning, and leaving at 11.13.

Mr Windridge said that Devoisey had 14 convictions for 31 offences, ‘including offences against the person and dishonesty.’

Jamie Strong, defending, said: “His record shows that between 2010 and 2016, apart from one matter of burglary to which he pleaded guilty today, he was offence-free in the community.

“It’s the longest period he’s had without offending since he started offending. He has the record of someone who has had an addiction to drugs, on and off, for a long period.”

Mr Strong said that after leaving prison, following a sentence for violence in 2010, with a qualification as a forklift driver, Devoisey had a job for five years and a stable address with his partner, with whom he now has two young children.

But they were living in a tiny apartment and, with his partner not working, they began falling out.

“He felt he had had enough and wanted ‘just one blow-out,’ and he did that by taking crack cocaine.

“But that led to him starting to use crack and heroin again on a regular basis, which led to these offences,” added Mr Strong.

Jailing Devoisey, Judge Griffith-Jones told him: “I am afraid you have to understand that the courts are going to bear down heavily on people who break into people’s homes.

“It is a very distressing thing for people whose property is broken into, and you always run the risk, when you steal items such as laptops, that you may also be stealing items with sentimental significance.”

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