TWO career criminals with almost 200 offences on their records are back behind bars after separate summer crime sprees.

Richard Gray was responsible for a break-in in which a car was also taken in June, and Jonathon Petch carried out a burglary in July.

The pair were dealt with together because of joint driving and fraud offences linked to the earlier crime.

Gray, 29, sneaked into a house in Geoffrey Avenue, Nevilles Cross, Durham, while the three occupants slept and took a cash card and a key for the Fiat 500 parked outside.

He was caught on CCTV at a supermarket in Hartlepool along with Petch, 31, at 4am where the used the card to buy £100 worth of goods, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Three hours later, Gray was stopped by police in the stolen car, and his mobile phone revealed evidence of him trying to sell it, said prosecutor Victoria Lamballe.

Petch was not arrested until a month later, after a morning burglary at nearby Ellam Avenue while the occupants were at work.

A neighbour contacted police after seeing an intruder go into the back garden, and he was detained nearby. A footprint was found in the house, but nothing had been taken.

Miss Lamballe said he may have been disturbed and fled quickly after a jewellery box had been opened and its contents poured onto a bed.

In an impact statement, the householder said she is now paranoid that someone may have been watching her or the property.

The earlier victim told in her statement how the crime has made her feel unsettled in what she thought was “a safe little backwater”.

Her daughter, who was staying there with her young son, says she is now afraid to go back to live alone at her home.

Jailing them each for three years, Judge Stephen Ashurst told the pair: “The court has to make it clear dwelling house burglaries have a profound effect on victims. For those considering carrying them out, sooner or later the penny will drop.”

Stephen Constantine, for Gray, of Bradford Crescent, Gilesgate, said the father-of-five would find it difficult being in prison and away from his children.

The court heard that he had 89 offences on his record, before his latest spree, including two for burglary.

He admitted driving while disqualified, having no insurance, burglary, theft and fraud.

Petch, of Geoffrey Avenue, pleaded guilty to burglary, fraud and allowing himself to be carried in a car taken without authority.

He already had 79 crimes in his record, including nine burglaries.

Judge Ashurst told him: “You are, I regret to say, a habitual burglar. I have come to the conclusion you have not learned from your earlier mistakes, and very serious mistakes they were.”

Richard Bennett, mitigating, said: “He hopes to spend the time in prison constructively as far as he can.”