A BURGLAR who was caught by a neighbour trying to get into the home of a 102-year-old on Christmas Eve told her: “It’s okay, I’m the window cleaner.”

Gavin James was jailed for three years after Teesside Crown Court heard that he has a previous conviction for targeting elderly women.

James, 33, wrote an apologetic letter to his victim but it was rubbished by a judge who said he should have shown remorse by pleading guilty sooner.

He did not admit the mean offence until he was confronted with damning DNA evidence – blood he left on the jacket of the neighbour as he wriggled free.

He put a brick through a window in a crude bid to break into the house – adapted with a stair-lift and handrails, and obviously the home of someone infirm.

The neighbour heard the noise and went to investigate, and grabbed James, but after a struggle he fled from the scene in central Middlesbrough.

He was linked to the crime when blood from a cut hand was found on the neighbour’s clothes and examined, prosecutor Jenny Haigh told the court.

Judge Howard Crowson paid tribute to the woman from the flat above, who was slightly injured, saying: “She is to be commended for her resilience.”

He told James, of Bridge Road, Middlesbrough: “I take the view that you did target the home because it wax clearly a house occupied by someone with infirmity.

“Looking at your past record, it is something you have taken upon yourself as a method – preying on people who are unlikely to be good witnesses against you.

“If you had been filled with remorse, I would have expected that to have emerged at magistrates court. It is an attempt to get sympathy when none is deserved.”

Duncan McReddie, mitigating, had earlier tried to convince the judge that James was sorry for what he had done with “articulate and genuine” letters.

Mr McReddie said: “The only explanation there appears to be for not pleading guilty is his judgment was clouded by the drugs he had been taking up to the point of his apprehension.

“It is plain from the letters Your Honour has seen that he fully accepts the full extent of his criminality.

“It is a classic situation of when he is clean and sober, he has a proper insight, and can articulate things well, whereas in the grip of addiction his only concern is from where he can get his supply.”