Burglar caught red-handed told Headington victim: 'I could have stabbed you'

Joanne McClements, 45, had hoped make off with her booty – a pair of Bose headphones, a large metal shoehorn and his house and car keys – but didn’t reckon on waking up the homeowner.

Prosecutor Alex Radley told Oxford Crown Court that the man was awoken at about 4.30am in his home in The Willows, Headington, on August 30 last year.

“He went to the bathroom and 20 minutes later – he had fallen asleep – he heard a noise in his house,” he said.

“He was sleeping downstairs at the time because he was doing some works in his house upstairs.

“He awoke to find Ms McClements in his house. He chased her out of the house, kept up with her until she reached a car where there was someone sitting in the car.

“There was a conversation between the two of them. Ms McClements said: ‘You should be grateful you wasn’t stabbed. I could have done anything to you. You was just lying there.’”

The court was told that the victim’s wife and children were not sleeping in the house on the night of the break-in.

McClements’ rap sheet of more than 100 previous offences was described as ‘horrendous’ by the judge on Monday.

The Willows, Headington Picture: GOOGLE

With two previous convictions for house burglary on her record, the thief risked being given a three year minimum sentence as a ‘third striker’.

But her barrister, Stephen Donnelly, asked Recorder Michael Roques to conclude that it would be unjust to impose the minimum sentence.

McClements had a troubled past and turned to hard drugs. After years as an addict, she had managed to get herself clean since being locked up at women’s prison HMP Eastwood Park last autumn.

Unusually, she had refused the offer of a lengthy stint at a drug residential rehabilitation facility, which would have seen her guaranteed a non-custodial sentence. Mr Donnelly said his client ‘was concerned that public expense was going to be used’ when she’d already detoxed in prison.

Speaking directly to the judge, McClements chronicled the difficulties she now faced trying to get mental health support behind bars. “I know the restrictions are being lifted on the outside but not yet inside. Mental health is a once a month [appointment] if I’m lucky,” she said.

McClements, of Luther Street, Oxford, pleaded guilty at the magistrates court last year to burglary.

Recorder Roques said the burglary was so serious only an immediate jail sentence was appropriate. But he found it would be unjust to impose the mandatory three year sentence, instead giving her 14 months behind bars.

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