An ‘incredibly inept’ burglar was caught hanging upside down from his shoelaces after getting stuck on a window frame inside a woman’s flat in York.
Lee Kenneth Moore, 41, woke the victim and her partner who heard “somebody moaning and groaning” and found the intruder hanging like a bat from their living-room window, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Leila Taleb said that Moore, who was “intoxicated”, had positioned recycling bins outside the flat to break in through the small living-room window, which had been left open due to the warm summer weather.
But as he crawled through the window his laces got snaggled in the frame and his foot became stuck in the window lock.
When the startled victim arrived in the lounge and asked Moore “what on earth he was doing”, the upside-down burglar replied: “I don’t know where I am.”
Sentencing judge Simon Hickey, who today jailed Moore for more than two years, said it was “one of the most inept burglaries that has appeared before me for quite some time”.
Head on the sofa
The break-in occurred at the ground-floor flat in Malt Shovel Court, Walmgate, at about 3am on 15 July after Moore had been roaming the streets and spotted an opportunity when he saw the open window.
“It was committed at a time when (Moore) had just been released from prison for a different sort of offence,” said Ms Taleb.
She said the female victim, who was named in court, had been watching films with her partner and went to bed at about midnight after leaving the window open.
The one-bedroom flat opened up onto a residential courtyard and couldn’t be accessed from the main road, so Moore must have sneaked through a private car park to reach the property.
After being wakened by his groaning at 3am, the woman’s partner, who was also named, went to check the living room and “saw a man hanging upside down from his shoelaces which had been caught on the window frame”.
“His foot was caught on the window locking mechanism,” added Ms Taleb.
The woman woke to find her partner in the lounge with the intruder, whose head was on their sofa.
Her partner tried to help the burglar “get unstuck” but the couple became concerned because they “didn’t know his intentions”.
The woman called police while her partner restrained Moore. Officers turned up ten minutes later to arrest him.
They noticed that three recycling bins had been stacked outside the living room which Moore had used to climb through the window.
Spontaneous decision
Moore was taken into custody but was so intoxicated through drink and drugs that he was taken to hospital to be checked out.
Despite being caught literally by his boot laces, Moore denied breaking into the flat and a trial was scheduled, only for him to plead guilty to burglary with intent to steal at an intervening court hearing.
He appeared for sentence today after being remanded in Hull Prison.
The court heard that Moore had a “shocking” criminal record, having racked up 116 previous offences.
His 59 previous convictions were “littered with thefts” and he had accumulated five burglary convictions in a four-year period between 2018 and 2022.
Defence barrister Matthew Stewart said that Moore had been “walking through the city” after going out “drinking to excess” with a friend before he made the “spontaneous decision” to break into the flat.
He said that Moore, a prolific shoplifter, had been living off benefits and had a drink problem and mental-health issues.
Judge Mr Hickey branded the attempted break-in “incredibly inept…but nevertheless quite frightening for (the victims)”.
He slammed Moore for his “dreadful” record and jailed him for two years and four months.