A SENIOR judge has stood up for the rights of burglary victims and hit out at a recent Court of Appeal judgement.
Sentencing three young burglars to detention Judge Ian Trigger - who hit the headlines last month in an outspoken attack on feral youths - said that decent law abiding members of society would be amazed that their barristers had urged him not to send them into custody.
"And they would be amazed they based their submissions on a recent decision of the Court of Appeal in a judgement given by the former Lord Chief Justice and where burglaries of this kind are described as 'low level or standard domestic burglaries'.
"A description which I imagine would be difficult to accept by the victim of this case and the victims in other so called low level or standard domestic burglaries."
He told the trio, including an 18-year-old woman who had never been in trouble before, that custody was inevitable and if they committed more burglaries they would receive longer sentences.
Candice Cowley, Lee Evans and Duane Roe had admitted breaking into a house in Trent Road, Shrubshaw Cross, Wigan, which a young mum and her two-year-old son where in the process of moving in.
Judge Triggers said that Stacey Wilkinson was immensely proud of her new home and had taken various items of property there ready to move in but when she arrived on August 4 she found the front door locked from the inside.
A neighbour came to her aid and found a rear window was open. Inside the victim found her suitcase of clothes had been opened and with "callous disregard for her" the contents scattered in her bedroom and hallway.
The intruders had cooked and eaten some her food and discarded the rest and noodles were all over the floor. "A bottle of wine she had taken to celebrate her new home had been drunk and the empty bottle discarded onto her lawn," he said.
Dirty nappies had been strewn about and her portable television, which she had saved to buy, had been stolen along her son's favourite 'Bob the Builder' DVDs, much to his consternation.
In a victim impact statement she described the burglary, in which about £300 worth of property was stolen, as "atrocious" and was particularly angered that her personal belongings had been rifled.
"She asked the court to take harsh action against the three of you. Not for the purpose of revenge but for what people might think of as the jolly good reason of teaching the three of you a sharp lesson and as she pointed out to prevent any of you repeating this disgraceful conduct and causing alarm and turmoil to others," said Judge Trigger.
"Most decent law abiding members of society would agree with those sentiments," he added.
Cawley, who was the girlfriend of 17-year-old Roe at the time, looked shocked when led from the dock at Liverpool Crown Court to the cells along with him and Evans.
Cawley, of Derwent Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Evans, 20, also of Derwent Road, were both sentenced to six months detention. Roe, of Sycamore Avenue, Golborne, who has a previous conviction for burglary on Christmas Eve 2006, was sentenced to eight months detention and training.