Prolific Coventry burglar jailed for stealing Christmas and birthday presents

Mitchell Tubman ransacked a house in Cheylesmore and opened gifts which had been put under the tree



A mean burglar stole Christmas and birthday presents from two houses during a one-man crime wave in Coventry.

Mitchell Tubman, aged 19, of Knightlow Avenue, Willenhall, admitted three charges of burglary and one of stealing a car and was jailed for two years and four months at Warwick Crown Court.

With him in the dock was Kurtis Ludford, aged 21, of The Moorfield, Stoke Aldermoor, who admitted handling a stolen car and possessing heroin with intent to supply, and was jailed for a total of three years.

In December a family who had been visiting relatives over Christmas were driving back when the wife’s mother phoned to break the news that their home in Dillotford Avenue, Cheylesmore, had been burgled.

They got back to find the house had been ransacked, with even the wife’s underwear drawer having been searched, and, of particular concern because of their one-year-old baby, there was broken glass all over the place.

They found presents had been unwrapped and stolen, together with jewellery, a watch, an expensive Bose speaker system and their other car, a Peugeot 207.

There had been two people involved in the break-in, which had taken place on Boxing Day, because a neighbour had seen them acting suspiciously and challenged them.

The day after the family’s return the husband went to the B&Q store – and on the car park he saw the Peugeot being driven by Ludford, with Tubman in the passenger seat.

So he took a photograph which he passed to the police who recognised the defendants, and when they were later arrested at an address near Quinton Pool, some of the property was recovered.

Then on January 5 a woman returned to her home in Calder Close, Cheylesmore, to find she could not get in because the chain had been put on the front door from the inside.

When she went round to the back garden she found a fence panel had been removed and the house broken into and ransacked.

Property worth thousands of pounds had been stolen, including her son’s birthday presents which had been unwrapped and taken, although some of the items were recovered at the Quinton Pool address when Tubman and Ludford were arrested.

The court heard that they both had previous convictions which, in Tubman’s case, including one for a number of burglaries, while Ludford’s included attempted burglary.

Jailing the two, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told Ludford: “I sit here week after week and see people whose lives have been ruined by class A drugs.

“That’s why sentences for people who supply them, even if not on the street but in the way you were, must be substantial.”

And Tubman, who also asked for eight more burglaries and two car thefts to be considered, was told: “People have a right to go away and lock their houses without them being broken into and ransacked by you.”