A bungling burglar who stole £49,000 worth of electronics from a shopping center has been jailed for nearly five years after police found a hand-scrawled plan of the shop in his bin.
Robert Mackenzie, 38, twice tried and failed to smash his way into the Parkway Shopping Center in Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough, back in April.
Using an axe, he finally managed to gain entry to the Tech Corner store at around 4am on April 9 where he stuffed a large bag full of high-end display items including tablets, phones and watches.
Mackenzie was identified by police from CCTV footage and his blood was found at the scene.
When officers went to his home they found the scrawled drawing of a shop layout in a bin.
The store valued the stolen goods at £48,973, while a further £6,049 worth of items were damaged, some beyond repair.
Mackenzie then crept into a man’s bedroom and pinched money from his wallet during a rather more sinister home burglary two days later.
The thief, from Coulby Newham, claimed he was stealing to pay for his own funeral amid growing health concerns, Teesside Crown Court heard.
He first struck the shopping center on April 1, smashing shop windows on two occasions in the early hours, but not managing to get in.
Mackenzie invaded the shopping center a second time at around 3am on April 9 when it took him an entire hour to hack his way into Tech Corner.
He spent five minutes trying and failing to smash one of the windows with half a brick and wasted another 10 minutes unsuccessfully using something a bit bigger until the axe finally did the trick.
Two days later he burgled a home nearby.
The householder woke to discover that a ‘long list’ of possessions worth £2,900 had been stolen from his home including TVs, an Xbox, money and precious sentimental items.
Most disturbingly, money was pinched from his wallet in his bedroom while he was sleeping.
Puppy tears up lawn after teen dog-sitter gets distracted on SnapchatA Vauxhall Astra was stolen from outside the home which was later found with some of the stolen belongings discarded inside.
The victim of the burglary said he was angry and distressed at the thought of an intruder ‘creeping around him’.
Mackenzie tried the door handle of another home nearby and stole two pairs of sunglasses from a car later that same morning.
He later admitted three burglaries, three attempted burglaries and one theft.
The burglar faced a minimum three-year sentence for his ‘fourth strike’ domestic raid following similar convictions in 1999, 2002 and 2011.
His record, comprising 67 offences, also features a four-year jail term imposed in 2016.
Andrew Turton, defending, said Mackenzie was ‘self-medicating’ with tablets amid a relationship breakup and family troubles.
The court heard he also had physical and mental health worries.
‘He has been overwhelmed by distorted thinking regarding the condition he was in, regarding the belief he was going to die,’ added Mr Turton.
‘He was going to pay for his funeral.’
Mr Turton added Mackenzie was coming off drugs in prison and his sister died four days after he was remanded in custody.
Judge Howard Crowson said some of Mackenzie’s problems were from his drug addiction, and they did not stop him burgling.
He said the shop burglaries were targeted and planned, and branded his claims of remorse ‘hollow’.
After jailing Mackenzie for four years and 10 months he lamented being unable to help the victims by ordering compensation, telling him: ‘You have no means whatsoever to pay them.’
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