A 'CREEPER' burglar who woke a six-year-old girl in the middle of the night as he searched for things to steal has been jailed for five years and eight months.

The youngster sobbed on the school run as she told her shocked mum what had happened after their home was raided in what police labelled the “Adam Jones crimewave”. Jailing the 30-year-old, a judge told Jones he could not ignore the fact detectives said the rate of burglaries in the area nosedived after he was caught.

Hannah Squire, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Jones mainly went after games consoles and cash in 14 house raids, mainly in the Old Walcot and Parks area.

He was already on bail for other break-ins, she said, when he targeted a family home in Raleigh Avenue late last year. On the morning of Friday, November 17, the occupants woke to find they had been broken into, with the woman’s handbag and back door keys missing.

“Her six-year-old daughter told her mum at about 8am, when she had was taking her to school, that she had seen a man in her room in the middle of the night,” she said.

“She was very scared and she was shaking and crying as she said it. She said it was not her mum’s partner and she did not recognise him.”

Miss Squire said that the mum had been trying to tell the little girl that it was a dream after she had become clingy and struggled to settleat night.

In another break-in a couple of weeks earlier, Jones took a school bag along with other items as a family with four children slept in their Cranmore Avenue home.

Jones, of Norton Road, Walcot, pleaded guilty to seven counts of burglary and asked for seven more to be taken into consideration. Miss Squire said that there had been a spate of night time burglaries, which took place while occupiers slept, in the area which tailed off when he was arrested.

Miss Squire said Detective Sergeant Ian Crouch, who had worked on the burglary squad, said there had been concern from local residents about the increase in the raids in the area.

“The biggest impact, he says, this crime wave had in this area is one of fear amongst residents in that particular location,” she said. “People were just not feeling safe in their own home. A creeper burglary is just about the worst sort, apart from one with violence.

“Since Mr Jones has been arrested DS Crouch has talked about the number of letters he has received of gratitude that the level of burglary in that area has dropped.”

Emma Handslip, defending, said her client was very sorry for what he had done and accepted he was facing jail for it. She said he was in the grips of a crack cocaine addiction which was costing him from £200 to £300 a day.

Jailing him, Judge Jason Taylor QC said: “There is a community impact set out in DS Crouch’s statement. He describes it as the 'Adam Jones crimewave'. He talks about the great decrease in creeper burglaries when you were arrested. I can’t ignore that.”