A burglar was caught red-handed clambering out the window – wearing the homeowner's jumper.

Dominika Dziadul, 33, claimed to have been ‘looking after’ the flat in Park Close, Banbury, for a few days when she was caught on July 5 by the shocked homeowner, whose distinctive pullover she was wearing and whose property she had just burgled.

Oxford Crown Court heard she was found three days earlier, on July 2, standing on the landing of a house in Waterloo Drive – having broken in.

She told the man who found her in his house that she was ‘looking for somewhere to live’.

Police linked her to another burglary, committed on June 21, when the householders in Middleton Road woke to find that cigarettes, an iPhone and keys to the conservatory door had been taken.

She was arrested on July 5, having been caught red-handed creeping out the flat window.

A number of the stolen items were recovered and police also found that she had a lock knife in a bag.

In interview, she told officers that she had the knife to ‘cut up food and open packages’. She claimed to have gone to the Park Close flat to ‘freshen up’.

Dziadul, of Alma Road, Banbury, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to three counts of burglary and a charge of possession of a bladed article. She had no previous convictions.

Derek Barry, mitigating, told the judge that two psychiatrists agreed that his client was suffering from a mental disorder – a form of psychosis and a delusional disorder – and should receive treatment at a psychiatric hospital.

Having been remanded in custody in July, she had spent months at a women’s prison before finally being transferred to a hospital last month.

Mr Barry said Dziadul had asked him ‘to apologise to the victims and to the court on her behalf’. She had come to the UK from Poland in 2018 to work and had not been in trouble before.

“She’s asked me to raise this so I will [although] I know it’s outside your honour’s powers. She wants to get better but she needs the help of people that can speak Polish. She’s asked me to raise that. I have raised that in front of your honour and I know those in the hospital hear what I say as well,” he told the judge.

Recorder John Bate-Williams imposed a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, meaning she will be released back into the community once doctors believe she is well enough.

He told the defendant, who appeared over the video link from hospital: “You’ve lived a good and useful life and I hope that you will soon return to that life.”

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward