A BURGLAR who claimed he had been in student accommodation because he had been wolf-whistled at by a resident has finally accepted his story was false.

Liam Rowbotham stole a 58ins television and a freeview box from the communal area of the property in Lime Crescent, Hartlepool, last March.

Teesside Crown Court heard that he sneaked in through a window at 5.45am and took the £1,000 worth of electrical goods.

But when he was arrested in May, said prosecutor Sam Faulks, "he gave a rather curious account, saying he had been wolf-whistled at by a resident, so decided to see what it was all about and that turned into a sexual liaison with a random student".

Rowbotham, 24, of Pine Grove, Hartlepool, admitted burglary when he appeared via a video-link from Durham Prison, and got nine months.

He has been recalled on a previous sentence for a stabbing in 2014, and his earliest release date now is 2021.

His barrister, Stephen Constantine, said he had been suffering from a psychotic mental illness "not helped by his consumption of substances", and carried out a crime he had never committed before.

"He finds the thought of stealing other people's property abhorrent, and can't believe he acted, in this confused state, with such behaviour," Mr Constantine told Judge Howard Crowson.