'The public needs protection from you': Bogus workman jailed for six years for preying on vulnerable man at his flat in Harehills

Steven Wright was handed the lengthy sentence after Leeds Crown Court heard he has served a previous jail term for preying upon elderly victims.

Wright, 40, targeted a man in his flat above a hairdressers on Harehills Lane on February 7 this year.

Wright knocked on the victim's door and told him he had come to investigate the cause of a leak at the business premises.

Naakesh Michl, prosecuting, said Wright was carrying a tablet device and said he would use it to take photographs of anything which needed repairing.

Wright was allowed into the flat and asked the man to turn taps in the property on and off.

When the man came out of the bathroom Wright had left with laptop computers and two mobile phones.

Police were contacted and Wright's fingerprint was found in the kitchen.

He was arrested but denied any wrongdoing.

Wright claimed he he had bought the laptops from a "smack head" days earlier.

He claimed he knew the man who lived at the flat despite giving the wrong name to officers.

Wright, of Nowell Mount, Harehills, pleaded guilty to burglary.

Wright received a four-year prison sentence in 2018 for targeting an elderly woman at her home.

He made her go turn on taps in her home before leaving the property with valuables.

Nicholas Hammond, mitigating, said Wright pleaded guilty to the offence at an early stage.

Mr Hammond said Wright's offending is linked to drug addiction.

Sentencing, Judge Tom Bayliss QC said: "The public need to know that the courts will protect them against men like you who prey upon them."