UK COMPUTERS STOLEN A Burglar who stole more than £2,000 worth of property from a North Lincolnshire address was brought to justice through a fingerprint left at the scene.

BURGLAR LEFT FINGERPRINT AT SCENE OF CRIME

09:45 - 27 October 2007

A Burglar who stole more than £2,000 worth of property from a North Lincolnshire address was brought to justice through a fingerprint left at the scene.

Iraqi national Raza Dramer gained entry to the address on Diana Street, Scunthorpe, on May 2, 2006.Jeremy Evans, prosecuting at Grimsby Crown Court, said: "The occupants are Polish nationals, brother and sister, and they live there with their respective partners.

"On the evening in question the two female occupants returned home to find their house had been entered through a forced, downstairs window.

"Goods worth a total of £2,300 had been removed. These included laptop computers, mobile phones and jewellery.

"The laptop computers had been plugged into a four-way socket. When scenes of crime officers attended, a fingerprint, later identified as the defendant's, was found on that laptop four-way socket," Mr Evans explained.

Dramer was arrested in Sheffield earlier this year over unrelated matters. He was then interviewed about the burglary.

He initially claimed he had gone to the property with an Asian male, who told him he lived at the address.

Dramer maintained he had only helped him carry out some bags, for which he was paid £40.

"The defendant did say he had a £25 per day heroin habit at the time he committed the offence," Mr Evans said.

But, when presented with the fingerprint evidence, Dramer admitted he had gone inside the address and said he could remember unplugging something.

Howard Shaw, defending, told Judge John Swanson there were no aggravating features in the case. "It was a standard burglary," he said.

Dramer, he continued, had pleaded guilty to the offence and had expressed genuine remorse for what he had done.

Dramer (22), who was living at an address on Mary Street, Scunthorpe, at the time, was jailed for 12 months.

Judge Swanson told him: "The property was very personal and valuable and the fact there has been an intruder in the house often affects people for the rest of their lives.

"The public are, in my judgement, rightly indignant where what they perceive to be over-lenient sentences are imposed for this kind of offence."