Man avoids jail after carrying out 30 crimes in Rugby, including burglaries and thefts from cars

A troubled young man had a ‘relentless approach’ to committing offences late at night in the Cawston area of Rugby ranging from vehicle interference to a house burglary.

Jamie Bremner carried out a spate of 30 crimes, most of them as he wandered the streets of Cawston at night.

But after hearing that he committed the offences at a time when he had lost the help of his support worker, a judge at Warwick Crown Court decided not to jail him.

Bremner (26) of Elborow Way, Cawston, was given a two-year community order, with an 8pm-6am curfew for two months, and was ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity.

He had pleaded guilty to a house burglary, two attempted burglaries, burglary of a garage, three thefts from shops, three thefts from cars and 19 offences of vehicle interference.

Prosecutor Olivia Appleby said that on January 16 Bremner burgled the detached garage of a house in Richard Walker Way, Cawston, and stole a drill and accessories and an angle grinder.

He was caught by a CCTV camera as he then unsuccessfully tried to get into a car parked on the drive.

On April 6 Bremner went into the Co-op store in Cawston where he stole cheese, meat and other food items worth about £50.

In one of a number of interjections, Bremner protested from the dock: “There was no meat. It was food for myself.”

Miss Appleby said that at the beginning of June Bremner made two visits to the Boots store in Rugby shopping centre, stealing hair straighteners worth £70 on the first occasion and fragrances worth around £200 on the second.

Then over a weekend in July, he carried out a number of offences as he wandered around residential streets in Cawston, beginning with the theft of an i-Pod and i-Phone from a car.

And when he was subsequently arrested, Bremner handed over the victim’s phone as his own phone.

Between 10.58pm on June 10 and the early hours of the following morning, there were a total of 18 vehicle interferences as he tried the door handles of cars, including four on the drive of the same address.

From those cars he was able to open, he stole a multi-tool, £20 in cash, loose change, perfume, £8 in cash and a bone-handled fish knife.

Late at night on July 13 a CCTV camera caught him as he pushed on the locked front door of a house in Noble Drive.

He then moved on to Lime Tree Avenue where he tried the door of one house before he was able to get inside another house where he stole an i-Pad, two vapes and a set of keys.

After leaving the house he went into the garden shed where the owner saw him on returning home and challenged him.

Bremner said he was hiding from someone who was after him, and it was only after he had gone that the man discovered the house had been burgled, said Miss Appleby.

The court heard Bremner had previous convictions for offences including thefts from cars and shops, and Judge Peter Cooke commented: “His relentless approach to committing these offences has to be an aggravating feature.”

Colin Charvill, defending, said: “It was an impulsive offence, in my submission, with little or no planning.”

He described the thefts from cars as opportunistic, but Judge Cooke commented: “It’s not. Opportunistic is when you are walking down the street and see an open window. When you’re going from car to car on people’s drives you’re trying to make your own opportunity.”

Mr Charvill said Bremner had some mental health issues and had a support worker, ‘but during the lockdown the assistance he was getting simply dwindled away.’

“It is clear he has troubles. He’s a man who needs support, and with support he stays out of trouble,” he added.

Judge Cooke told Bremner: “You are a young man with a whole host of problems. When you have structured assistance, and when you have structure in your life, you can just about get by.

“Apart from the garage break-in in January everything is during the lockdown when there was disruption to the support, and you committed some shoplifting offences, and then on a night in July you went out with some determination to nick what you could.

“I do believe you are very sorry. You need support and structure, and that’s the best way of preventing this.”