A ‘THREE-STRIKE’ burglar who stole around £70,000 worth of jewellery and cash leaving a Bradford family “devastated” has been jailed for four years.

Maximillian Lambert, 29, was part of a gang who pushed out a bay window to remove a safe from a house on Oakleigh Road, Clayton, on November 5.

Bradford Crown Court heard that the occupant of the house had gone to work and returned around 11pm to find the house ransacked.

CCTV footage showed that at around 8.40pm, a group of men had arrived at the house by car before one searched the property and got in through a conservatory window.

The patio doors were then smashed and the window removed to transfer a safe to the waiting car.

“Thousands of pounds” worth of damage was caused to the house, and the court heard that the safe contained around £60,000 worth of gold jewellery and approximately £7,000 in cash.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the occupants of the house said they now felt “violated” and “constantly on edge.”

The jewellery was said to have belonged to one of the couple’s parents, described as “very sentimental and irreplaceable”, having been “passed down through generations.”

The couple said: “What they have taken cannot be replaced. The only way for us to move on will be to move away and start afresh.”

The gang, who tampered with the alarm system at the house, all had their faces covered by either balaclavas or scarves.

Lambert, of Romanby Shaw, Greengates, Bradford, was arrested after his blood was found on the window frame of the house.

He pleaded guilty to burglary, having already been convicted of the same offence in both 2007 and 2012.

Lambert, a father-of-two whose current partner is seven months pregnant, said he was “thoroughly ashamed” of his role in the offence.

Judge David Hatton QC said Lambert had entered into the burglary “with his eyes open.”

He said: “You were aware of the consequences if you were caught, which you happily were.

“You fall foul of the three-strike provision.

“You were part of a disguised group of people, and the property was clearly targeted and ransacked. It has had a devastating effect upon your victims.”