Guilt-ridden burglar hands himself in for crimes he committed 30 years ago
A middle-aged man ridden with guilt over his criminal past life handed himself in to police nearly three decades after a burglary spree.
Stuart McDonald, 51, spent 13 years stealing car keys and breaking into fruit machines between 1993 and 2006.
Police were not after him and for years it seemed as he had got away with the crimes.
Instead of living with the secret forever, McDonald wanted to ‘clear’ his past.
So he walked into a police station Cambridge and confessed to 18 offences.
This included a break-in at a pub in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, in 1994 when he stole £1,000 in cash from fruit machines.
McDonald also owned up to a burglary of an Argos store in Huntingdon in 2006 when he took a bracelet from the counter.
Lisa Bacon, of Cambridgeshire Police, said: ‘McDonald has made the decision to clear his offending past and get the support he needs to prevent him returning to a life of crime.’
At Cambridge Crown Court on Friday, he pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary and the judge took into account a further 16 offences.
McDonald, of no fixed address, has now been jailed for more than a year.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.