A serial burglar with more than 150 previous convictions was back stealing days after being spared a jail sentence.
Joel Lawrence, 51, had a 16-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months for attempted burglary and going equipped after he was found prowling streets in Norwich’s Golden Triangle with a torch, snippers and gloves.
Sentencing him at Norwich Crown Court on August 14, Judge Alice Robinson had urged him to "take advantage of the opportunity" of being spared immediate prison.
However, just five days later he had been arrested for stealing items from Tesco in Ipswich Road, Norwich Magistrates’ Court was told.
Josephine Jones, prosecuting, said he had been caught after shoplifting a quantity of chicken.
READ MORE: Boy worries about his father after Golden Triangle attempted burglary
Lawrence, previously of William Kett Close in Norwich but who told the court he was now of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to theft.
Magistrates adjourned his sentencing until October 7 when his remaining suspended sentence could be also activated.
He was given bail with conditions banning him from entering any retail premises in Norfolk except one Tesco Express and the Vauxhall Road Pharmacy.
Lawrence has more than 60 previous convictions for in excess of 150 offences - including 19 burglaries.
He had been caught red handed on Newmarket Road in February after being spotted on video doorbell footage trying doors of homes.
READ MORE: Student and partner woke to see burglar at end of bed
The court was told one of his attempted break-ins had left an eight year old boy too terrified to go to bed on his own and worried about his father while at school.
He was also previously jailed for 45 months in 2021 for breaking into a flat in Mandells Court, near Elm Hill, when a student and her partner were awoken by a noise to see a figure at the end of their bed.
His other burglaries included one at a property in Earlham Road and a burglary at University of East Anglia student accommodation last April.
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