A BURGLAR who confronted a frightened 72-year-old Stroud woman in her own home at night was handed a jail term of four years ten months today.

The woman, who lives alone, was in bed in her home in Uplands at 9.40pm on September 21 last year when prolific burglar Richard Stokes broke in, Gloucester crown court was told.

Initially he rang the doorbell but she ignored it, said prosecutor Janine Wood. She then heard a smashing sound and went to investigate.

"She saw a torchlight outside her bedroom and then spotted a man half way up the stairs. He was wearing a beanie hat and holding a torch.

“He ran off but the defendant was detained not far away soon afterwards and had a beanie hat and a torch on him."

Stokes was bailed by police pending further investigations but then committed another house burglary just days later, said Mrs Wood.

And, since the two offences, he has been jailed for two years for other non-dwelling burglaries he committed last year, she added.

Today, Stokes, of Matson Lane, Gloucester, pleaded guilty to the Uplands burglary with intent to steal and also to breaking into a house in Paganhill Lane, Stroud, on October 1 last year and stealing jewellery worth £1,120.

Judge Michael Cullum sentenced him to two years five months consecutively for each of the burglaries. He said the sentences would also run consecutively to the two year sentence he is currently serving.

"You have got a dreadful list of previous convictions and you can properly be described as a career burglar," the judge told Stokes.

"I doubt the court can do anything to make you stop stealing from peoples' houses but what the court can do is keep you out of circulation for a significant period of time."

Judge Cullum said the latest burglaries probably meant nothing to Stokes - but they had been traumatic for the victims.

"The distress of a 72-year-old lady living alone and finding you in her property is easy to imagine.

"Even eight months later she has found herself unable to book a holiday because she is fearful of leaving her house."

Mrs Wood had told the court that the woman occupier of the Paganhill Lane house was out when Stokes broke in during the daytime on October 1.

She returned in the afternoon to find a back window smashed and the house had been untidily searched. Jewellery had been taken from her bedroom and it included her late mother and mother-in-law's gold engagement ring.

Black hair found in her bedroom was DNA tested and found to be Stokes'.

Sarah Jenkins, defending, said: "He doesn't wish me in any way to try to make excuses for these matters.

“He doesn't wish me to try to evoke any sympathy for him. He accepts what he has done."

But she did ask the court to bear in mind that he had suffered four family bereavements at the time of the offences and they had led to him relapsing back into illicit drug use.

"He has very little recollection of the commission of the offences," she added.