A CAREER criminal who burgled four homes while the occupants were sleeping and stole a precious pendant containing a dead woman’s ashes has been jailed for four years.

Neil Robinson, who has 42 convictions for 115 offences, told police he had not acted alone in the night-time raids committed in Thornaby and Stockton, Teesside, which netted cash, wallets, the keys to a car - a top-of-the range Audi Q7, which was later stolen, a 55 inch television, tablets and jewellery, including engagement and wedding rings.

Robinson also took a chain and pendant, which contained the ashes of a sister of one of the occupants. They were never retrieved.

Prosecuting at Teesside Crown Court, Emma Atkinson said footprints left at the properties, were matched to Robinson’s own footwear.

Entry was forced in some of the burglaries, committed over two nights on January 26 and 27 this year, but Robinson was able to walk in through the front door at one of the homes after the householder fell asleep on a sofa without locking it.

Robinson, 37, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to four counts of burglary and taking a vehicle without consent.

Adrian Dent, mitigating, said Robinson’s relationship had broken down with the mother of his child and he had also been addicted to heroin, although he was now clean.

He said: “He is getting on now and he realises he needs to grow up.”

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton said the stolen ashes had been of “huge sentimental value”.