Bungling boiler burglar went on ‘one-man crime spree’ in Leeds to pay for his crack addiction

Desperate Mark Hutchinson said he needed to sell the items for scrap to feed his spiralling crack habit. The 38-year-old admitted three dwelling burglaries and a theft during a sentencing hearing at Leeds Crown Court.

Hutchinson first targeted a flat on March 29 in which a woman was due to move into. But when she let herself in, the washing machine had been pulled out and the copper piping behind it was missing.

His finger prints were left on the machine and he later told police it was because he knew the person who had lived there before and had often visited. But he was told the washing machine had only been recently installed after the previous tenant moved out.

Having been released under investigation, he then broke into a bowling green shed in Leeds on May 21, stealing a power washer, but was recognised on CCTV.

The on June 12, he was seen on CCTV again leaving a block of flats on Gipton Gate East with copper pipes and a boiler, heading for a scrap metal merchant. After his arrest he said he found them in a skip, but changed his story, saying they had been given to him by a friend.

Finally, after being released again, he broke into a flat on Briarsdale Court, the same block where he lives, and was caught inside after the boiler had been removed. Again, his finger prints were found on that boiler.

He has eight previous convictions for 14 offences, including two burglaries committed when he was a youth. A probation stand-down report suggested Hutchinson had become hooked on crack cocaine after the first time he tried it.

Mitigating, Matthew Stewart said he was the carer for his cancer-stricken mother, and had hopes of working as a labourer.

Judge Tom Bayliss KC described Hutchinson’s offending as a “one-man crime spree” and said he had “no confidence” of him adhering to a community order, given that he committed each offence shortly being arrested for the previous crime. He jailed him for 12 months.