BURGLARS raided a family home while a mother and her young daughter were asleep.

James Meaney, 27, and an accomplice stole two televisions, bank cards and keys for a car on the drive.

The pair took the Vauxhall Astra and tried to go on spending sprees with a card – at Asda in Darlington and Bradbury service station near Stockton.

Police recognised Meaney from CCTV at the supermarket and filling station and arrested him days later.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday that the £6,000 hatchback had been sold for just £200 and the televisions were never recovered.

The householder said in a statement that her partner had been working away, and she was devastated to find she had been burgled.

In the early hours of June 15 last year, she got a text message from her bank, asking if she had been repeatedly using her card through the night.

After getting up with her six-year-old daughter, she discovered a bag containing a laptop had been taken along with the TVs and her purse.

Having leaving the semi-detached property in Eaglescliffe, roadside cameras picked up the car on the A66 heading towards Darlington.

Prosecutor Jonathan Harley said CCTV also caught the crooks at Snacks 24 on Melville Road, Darlington, and at McDonalds.

The householder said a week after the raid: “I am no further forward. I am at a financial loss and insurance claims have to be made. I can handle that, but what still gets me is that they have been into my home, my place of safety, while me and my daughter slept.

“I am annoyed I never woke up, and my partner feels guilty because he was away at the time.”

Meaney, of Scargill, Darlington, admitted burglary, theft and fraud, and was jailed for three years and seven months.

The court heard that he has 26 offences on his record, including four separate house raids, and three other break-ins.

His barrister, Matthew Collins, said becoming a father has had a “profound” impact on his life, and Meaney is also the primary carer for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis.

“The birth has made him feel, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he is responsible for someone else and has made him wish to change,” said Dr Collins.

"He wants to say in public that he us extremely sorry.”