Jail for drug-using burglar snared by DNA evidence

A BARTON woman woke in the early hours of New Year’s Day to find a burglar in the garden after he had just raided her house.

Michael Humphreys, of Station Road, New Milton, was jailed at Southampton Crown Court for three years for the offence – which happened while he was the subject of a community order for dealing cannabis.

Sending him down, Judge Christopher Parker said that at 37 years old, Humphreys needed to address his drug problems.

“You can’t carry on like this,” he said. “Are you going to be doing this when you’re 67? If you carry on with it you won’t make it to 67.”

Prosecutor Thomas Acworth said the victim woke up in the early hours of 1st January, looked out her window and saw Humphreys in her garden. He had taken her car keys, house keys and mobile phone.

His DNA was discovered on the lounge door by investigating police, alongside profiles of two others who could not be identified.

At the time Humphreys was on a community order, given in 2017 for dealing cannabis on the streets in Boscombe.

Mr Acworth said the defendant had also failed to show up to three sessions of that rehab order, which “never got off the ground”.

The defendant failed to turn up to court for the burglary matter when it went to trial, the prosecutor added.

Humphreys denied the burglary but was found guilty by a jury following a trial at the crown court. He appeared at court from prison and also admitted three breaches of the community order and a charge of failing to surrender to custody.

Defending, Alejandra Tascon said Humphreys, who has a partner, was remorseful for his offending and the “toxic” effects his drug taking had had on his life.

He was a heroin and crack cocaine user, she continued, but since being sent to prison a month ago had got clean and spent time thinking about his future.

“The use of the drugs has caused his life to spiral,” she said. “He wants to turn his life around. He is deeply remorseful his life has turned out this way and does not want to go on like this.”

She acknowledged the offences crossed the custody threshold but made a plea for mercy. “I’d like you to give him a chance,” she told Judge Parker. “When I say a chance, I mean in terms of keeping any custodial sentence to the low end.”

Judge Parker revoked the community order and sentenced all the offending together to come up with the three-year term.

Of the burglary, he said Humphreys had “violated” the victim’s privacy, adding: “It must have been a very frightening experience knowing someone had got into her home without her knowledge.”