In Court:
Jobless drunk targeted home while family slept

A 12-year-old boy’s mother found him hiding under the quilt, too scared to get up in case an intruder who had gone into his bedroom in the middle of the night was still in the house.

The family's home on Lytham Road in Rugby had been targeted by jobless Piotr Kulewicz in November last year.

Warwick Crown Court heard the 32-year-old was on bail for a previous burglary when he searched a number of rooms, including the boy's bedroom, while a couple and their two children slept.

He even began piling up items ready to take them with him when he left.

But the boy's dad woke up when Kulewicz put his head round the door to their room, and as he got up to confront Kulewicz he ran off, taking only the keys to their car which the police found discarded between the house and where they arrested him nearby.

Kevin Saunders, defending, said two years after coming to this country from Poland, Kulewicz had not got a penny to his name, having lost his job and spending all his money on drink, and he was drunk when he carried out the burglary and another in September at the Little Church Street flat of a man who had recently suffered a stroke.

Judge Marten Coates jailed Kulewicz, of George Street in Rugby, for two years and nine months after he pleaded guilty to the two burglaries.

"A mother, her partner and two children were asleep, and you went into the bedroom occupied by the boy," the Judge told him.

"He awoke and saw you, and I am told he has found the experience extremely frightening.

"Under our sentencing guidelines the first is regarded as more serious than the second, but when one looks at the facts, the position, in my view, is reversed.

"You were on bail and this was the night-time burglary of an occupied house."

Share This

Regional news »