A 60-year-old retired woman turned detective on social media and foiled the burglar who stole cherished coins from her home.
Institutionalised jailbird Andrew Tom Smith, 39, was caught as he embarked on a crime spree to get himself locked up yet again.
A judge granted his wish and sent him to prison - “the only place where he feels safe and content”.
He smashed his way into the 60-year-old woman’s home on Blakeston Lane, Stockton via a window while she was out on the afternoon of January 20.
He rifled through drawers and stole commemorative coins of sentimental value, one of which was a retirement gift, and a laptop, iPhone and costume jewellery.
The retired woman was scared that the intruder might still be in the house when she came home to find her belongings missing.
Prosecutor Harry Hadfield said: “The victim actually used social media to try to get information about this burglar.”
She was successful as she was contacted and told who was responsible for the crime.
Smith was arrested the same day, Teesside Crown Court heard.
He would not even open his mouth in a police interview, then pretended to be sick into a bin.
Officers found some of the stolen coins in the bin where he had feigned vomiting. Another coin was found in his sock.
He confessed to the burglary and took police to where he had stashed the remaining possessions.
The 60-year-old householder said in a statement she was angry that her home was violated.
She said she now felt scared in a home to which she had moved to feel safe.
Smith, of Bath Lane, central Stockton, pleaded guilty to burglary and stealing a £100 mountain bike from a garden in Thorpe Thewles.
He had 82 previous offences stretching back to the 1990s including a catalogue of burglaries which earned him sentences creeping up from probation orders to a five-year jail term in 2012.
He burgled the homes of two retired people on one Stockton street in 2012, leaving a disabled man living in fear.
Duncan McReddie, defending, said: “Mr Smith said to the officers arresting him that it was a good job he was caught.
“He was going to go on a spree. He wanted to be locked up for a significant time.
“Mr Smith has instructed that he is institutionalised. When life gets too much for him the only place he feels safe and content is prison. He’s clearly spent a lot of time there.”
He said Smith had rejected advice for an appeal against his last five-year sentence.
The judge, Recorder Sarah Mallett, told Smith: “You appear to have been undeterred by previous sentences of imprisonment.
“Unfortunately it’s necessary to stop you burgling people’s houses by keeping you incarcerated because it doesn’t seem that any more constructive approach is achievable.”
She jailed Smith for three years.
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