A Dundee woman has told of her relief after the man who broke into her home and stole her son’s heart monitor and her wedding ring was jailed for two years.
Kelly Collier’s son suffers from fits and doctors were using a special machine to monitor his heart at the time when their house was ransacked last March.
On Friday, David Henderson pleaded guilty on indictment to a charge of theft by housebreaking and was jailed for two years.
Mrs Collier said: “It’s a great relief. It’s about time. I actually wanted to move when it happened. At first we didn’t want to go out for fear of it happening again.”
Mrs Collier had been babysitting for friends in Forfar when her wheelchair bound husband Graeme rang her to tell her he had returned home to find the house had been broken into.
“I came flying down the road,” she said. “I was thinking ‘What a mess, what have they taken?’”
She said the police think Mr Collier, who has muscular dystrophy, may have disturbed Henderson (42) in the act because there were still items piled up on the windowsills.
“There was also a wee bit of blood on the floor and the bed,” she said. “The house was wrecked.”
Mrs Collier, who is a carer for her husband, her son and her daughter, said there were also laptops piled on the bed as if Henderson had collected them all there ready to make off with them.
The police were able to recover some of the items, which were found near the family’s specially adapted home in Dundee.
However, they never found Mr and Mrs Collier’s wedding rings and other items of jewellery as well as their son’s bank card.
Since the break-in the family have had an alarm fitted to the house and Mrs Collier said it has made her feel a lot safer, but she was relieved Henderson is now behind bars.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that the career criminal had broken in through a window before ransacking the four-bedroom detached home and stealing medical equipment, furnishings, a safe, bank cards, a camera and computer equipment.
Depute fiscal Donna Davidson told the court: “At 5pm on March 31 last year Mr Collier left the house and secured it. He returned home later in the evening to find items had been moved and the house in a mess. He called police and noted that many items had been moved around the living room. Police saw a window was open and there was a small hole in it.”
Gary McIlravey, defending, said Henderson, of Rowantree Crescent, Dundee, had a “substantial record” and added: “He is well aware that there’s only one outcome for him today, and that’s custody.”
Sheriff Kenneth McGowan jailed Henderson for two years, saying: “One of the disturbing aspects of this is that it had a significant impact on Mr Collier and those living with him. He uses a wheelchair and it will have left him feeling somewhat vulnerable.”