A BURGLAR from Burnley who repaid the charity of a family friend by breaking into her home and selling off her valuables has been jailed.

Luke Keane, 22, turned up at the home of Lauren Todd, asking for a place to stay after his girlfriend had kicked him out, the town’s crown court was told.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Prosecutor Kevin Donnelly said that Miss Todd did not want to see her friend placed out on the streets so she agreed to let him stay.

The following day she was about to leave the property with Keane when she asked him to lock the kitchen door.

But Miss Todd did not see him perform the request and they left together, with the householder returning to her home, in Dane Street, at around 11.30pm.

Once inside she discovered that her 42-inch TV was missing from a downstairs room and, after going to her bedroom, found that a second 32-inch TV was also gone, as well as £20 from her child’s money box.

Shortly afterwards Miss Todd was informed that Keane had been telling people how he had walked out of her house with the two TVs and taken them to a Cash Converters store to sell them.

CCTV footage from the shop in St James Street showed Keane arriving with the items and he was later arrested.

The court heard Keane had performed a similar burglary, involving another friend, when he had lived in the Newton Heath area of Manchester in September 2014.

Keane, of Leyland Road, Burnley, who appeared via video link from Preston Prison, admitted two offences of burglary and was jailed for 876 days.

He qualified for a minimum three-year sentence, as a three-time house burglar, which was imposed by Judge Jonathan Gibson, minus 20 per cent remission for his guilty plea.

Judge Gibson described the crimes as “mean offences” which had involved in him taking advantage of his friends.

Rachel Cooper, defending, said her client was a father-of-five, with two very young children, who had been facing financial problems at the time of the second burglary.

Keane accepted that he would now be missing some of the formative years of his most recent arrival, who was aged just 14 weeks, the court heard.