A BURGLAR who targeted the elderly has been locked up for 18 months.
Nathan Heath, 18, committed three burglaries, one after the other, in Willerby and even targeted two homeowners in their 80s.
Neighbours raised the alarm and a search operation was launched by police.
Officers caught Heath a few hundred yards away, hiding inside a house.
Judge Michael Mettyear told Heath: "House burglaries are always regarded as serious by the courts and here you were involved in a spate of them.
"You were determined and went from one place to another and two of the properties had very old people in them.
"People are terribly upset by people getting into their properties and going through their belongings and sometimes they never recover from the shock of having their property defiled in that way.
"As you know, custody is inevitable here, nothing else can be justified."
Heath, of no fixed address, has been sentenced to 18 months in a Young Offenders Institute.
All the offences happened on October 30 last year.
Heath first targeted a house in Fulford Crescent, Willerby, where he climbed up the drainpipe while the young woman who lived there was in the shower.
She saw Heath opening her bathroom window and when he saw her, he claimed he wanted to inform her someone was breaking into her shed before he made off.
Shortly afterwards, he went to the home of an 82-year-old man who lived near the first victim.
Prosecutor Nick Adlington said: "He turned round to find himself confronted by the defendant in his hallway. Heath said he was there to collect a scrap washing mach- ine. The complainant escorted him off the premises."
Just 40 minutes later, Heath then targeted an 87-year-old woman in The Parkway, Willerby.
He raided her house, stealing her purse and property, and was seen leaving her home by her neighbours who called the police.
The police launched a search for the burglar after receiving three calls and Heath was found hiding in the bedroom of a house nearby.
Heath pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to three burglaries and, under Operation Cleanslate, admitted another 17 burglaries.
The operation allows defendants to admit further offences to receive a lesser sentence.
