A BURGLAR has been jailed for breaking into the home of a frail 88-year-old pensioner and stealing the last mementoes of his late wife.

William Boon targeted the bungalow where the widower lived alone two nights before Christmas and searched it while he was sat in the living room watching the television.

He has mobility problems and partial deafness and the volume was so loud that he did not hear the intruder moving around his home.

Boon was caught red-handed by police who stopped a friend’s Mercedes car shortly after it left the scene. Jewellery and an ornamental box were found in the car along with documents which showed where they had come from.

The elderly victim had no idea he had been burgled until police came to his door. He was so shocked that he needed a carer to look after him for the rest of the night.

He wrote an impact statement saying he is still finding it hard to sleep and lives in constant fear.

Boon, aged 41, of Grenville Avenue, Torquay, admitted burglary and asked for an earlier offence in Newton Abbot to be taken into account.

He was jailed for two years and three months and banned from going to the victim’s home by a restraining order by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ’You took items of very great sentimental value. It is fortunate that many, if not all were recovered but this burglary has had a devastating effect on the victim.’

Miss Felicity Payne, prosecuting, said Boon was already on bail for the burglary in Newton Abbot in 2018 when he carried out the new raid on the night of December 23, 2020.

Police found him with gloves, watches, a jewellery box and the victim’s driving licence and bank cards. They also found a jemmy which he used to break into a window of the bungalow in Pinhoe.

The victim had kept some of the items as mementoes of his late wife, who he had nursed through multiple sclerosis before she died of cancer 20 years ago.

Miss Kelly Scrivener, defending, said Boon is very ashamed and remorseful and has written a letter of apology. He has managed to stay out of trouble for years at a time in the past when he has been in a relationship, working, and off drugs.

She said he has had a very hard time in prison since his arrest because he caught Covid after being forced to share a cell with an inmate who had tested positive for the virus.

Boon was previously jailed in 2012 for a series of raids on the homes of pensioners in Twickenham Road, Newton Abbot, Southey Lane, Kingskerswell, and Torquay.