A burglar who made the mistake of raiding a neighbour’s home without realising they were retired police officers found himself handcuffed to a fence.

Stephen Snell set off an alarm in an outbuilding and ended up being pinned to the ground by home owner Robert Campbell and shackled by his wife Yvonne with a set of cuffs they had kept from their police service.

Serial burglar Snell had crept into the garden of the house in Kingskerswell, South Devon at 4.30 am and gone into a marquee where the Campbells were storing property during building work inside the house.

The alarm woke Mr Campbell who saw light from a torch moving around inside the tent and went to investigate.

He caught Snell as he was sneaking through a wire fence and held onto him until his wife came out of the house with a pair of handcuffs which they still had from their days in the police.

Snell, aged 59, who has 42 previous convictions for burglary and other offences, lived only a quarter a mile away from the Campbells’ home.

Snell, of Carswells, Kingskerswell, denied burglary but was convicted by a jury at Exeter Crown Court and jailed for six months, suspended for two years, and ordered to undertake 25 days of rehabilitation activities by Judge Graham Cottle.

He told him: ‘You went into the shelter in the garden with the intention of stealing tools or equipment but unknown to you an alarm activated the occupier and you were restrained until police arrived.

‘You have quite a long record but if you went to prison, it would not be for long because this was a low level burglary. It is more constructive to suspend the sentence so you can undertake rehabilitation activities."

During the trial in January, the jury heard how Snell set off the alarm in the tent at Lyndhurst Road, Kingskerswell on July 17 last year.

Mr Campbell made a citizen’s arrest as Snell tried to get out through metal security fencing. His wife brought the handcuffs and called the police.

Snell claimed he was out for an early morning stroll, went into the garden in the belief if contained a skip and planned to ask the owners before taking anything. He was convicted after the jury heard there was no skip.

Miss Bathsheba Cassel, defending, said Snell had done well for two years after being released from his last jail sentence but suffers from problems with mental illness which led him to commit the offence. This had not been diagnosed and treated until after his conviction.