A BURGLAR who tried to raid his mother's home while she was away got the shock of his life - when his sister was there.

Duane Birdsall had already been involved in break-ins at shops in Darlington when he smashed a window at the Stockton flat.

He was about to climb into what he thought was an empty property when he saw his sister emerge from behind the curtains.

Teesside Crown Court heard that she had offered to stay there with her husband to protect her mum’s possessions in September.

The sister phoned the police and her mother and she told them what she had seen at the ground-floor flat in Cypress Court.

Birdsall, of Station Road, Darlington, was arrested a few days later, and his mother said that she wanted him to get help.

Prosecutor Paul Rooney said: “She now sleeps in the living room in fear he will return, and has extra locks on the doors.”

Birdsall, who has 55 crimes on his record, had been released on bail for three burglaries in Darlington last summer.

The court heard how the 34-year-old had broken into a garage, a florists and a pizza shop in June and July.

His fingerprint was found on a till at the flower shop where £100 was stolen, and he was identified from CCTV footage.

Julian Gaskin, mitigating, told Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, that unemployed Birdsall was realistic about his fate.

He added that Birdsall deserved credit for his guilty pleas because he abandoned a trial for the attempted break-in.

Mr Gaskin said he did not want to put his mother through the ordeal of having to give evidence in front of a jury.

He said Birdsall had worked for years in catering and he now has a job in the kitchens at Holme House Prison, Stockton.

Judge Bourne-Arton told him: “I know you’ll say you were desperate for heroin, but this was your mother’s flat.

“But that was committed on bail in relation to three other non-dwelling burglaries.”

Birdsall was jailed for three years after he admitted attempted burglary, and three charges of burglary.