Child burglar jailed again in latest break-in

A career burglar who has clocked up 25 break-ins at the age of just 19 years old has been jailed for another four years.
Zack JonesZack Jones
Zack Jones

Zack Jones pleaded guilty to his 25th burglary when he appeared at Preston Crown Court.

He has burgled 23 houses and two business premises on the Fylde Coast after taking to crime at the age of 13.

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Jones, who grew up in care, has already served a sentence under the ‘three strike’ rule, which calls for a minimum sentence of three years behind bars for any offender caught burgling domestic properties for a third time. On March 11 2015 he was locked up for 876 days for burglary.

But within weeks of his release, the career criminal returned to his old ways and broke into a house in Central Drive, Blackpool, while the householders were in bed.

On May 30 the residents went downstairs to discover the PS4, an iPad Air, an iPhone 6 and 13 games had been stolen. Jones’ fingerprint was found on the frame of an open window.

Judge Pamela Badley, sentencing, said: “For someone of your age who should be on the threshold of your future life, you have got a past of apprenticeship and honing your skills as a burglar.

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“If that is the life you want then your sentences will get longer and longer.

“I have to deal with you for a burglary you committed. It was the usual shabby situation. A family, no doubt hard working, who had done their best to provide their children with some pleasure in life, woke up in the morning to find that items had been taken.

“They were taken by you in order to cash in and get some money, and also because you have got a deep seated resentment that other people have got chances you are not.

“I can’t and nobody can put you back in the position you would have been in if you had a loving stable family, but at the age of 19, as an adult, you have a choice to make.

“No doubt in the future you will have your own family.

“I do urge upon you to take the opportunities of education, because although you have seen the grim side of prison life, there are opportunities there.”