Thieving Telford window cleaner is jailed
A thieving window cleaner was caught red-handed stealing from one of his customers in Shropshire – after a suspicious neighbour filmed him leaning through an open bedroom window.
Leighton Cuthbert swung from his ladder and leaned into Adrian Neal's home in Telford to grab a credit card which he then used on a spending spree.
But the whole episode was caught on camera by a neighbour who grew suspicious of the 30-year-old and the time it was taking for him to clean three panes of glass.
Shrewsbury Crown Court was told that Cuthbert called at the home of Mr Neal, 57, on Trevithick Close in Woodside, last August to clean his windows.
But unbeknown to the thief, neighbour Andrew Mitchell was watching and as the job dragged on, he took out his mobile phone and started recording the whole burglary.
Cuthbert, of Mullinder Drive, Ketley Bank, Telford, then used the stolen card to make more than £150 worth of purchases, including £42 at Domino's Pizza.
He was yesterday jailed for 14 months after pleading guilty to one charge of burglary and five charges of fraud on August 26.
After buying pizzas, the cleaner then topped up his mobile phone credit and was only stopped when Mr Neal, who works for an aerospace firm in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton, cancelled the card.
Mrs Janet Pitt-Lewis, defending, claimed Cuthbert stole the card to help feed his family. "My client and his family were having acute problems with their benefits," she said.
After the hearing Mr Neal said: "I thought it was the window cleaner but I could not prove it until my neighbour came out and said he had the video."
Mr Mitchell, 57, who runs his own cleaning company, said: "He was a chancer because the windows were slightly open.
"The police could not believe how stupid he was."
