A prolific burglar who stole from a 67-year-old woman has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

David Moyles, 48, had a record of burglary and theft dating back more than 30 years, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Prosecutor Susanna Kitzing said that at 8pm on December 7 Moyles called at the woman’s address in Roydhouse Walk, Keighley, where she lives alone, and offered to sell her whisky and cigarettes.

He was allowed in and given a glass of whisky. Moyles asked to use the toilet, went upstairs and then left the property. She became suspicious, checked her purse and found £36 had been taken.

Shortly after midnight he returned and said he had the goods for her but needed £40.

He pushed the door open, walked in and repeated the request.

She went to a cupboard and got out a tin of money.

Moyles went on his hands and knees on the pretext of looking for his glasses and took the tin, which contained £280, bank books and an autograph book.

He was traced by his fingerprints on the glass he had drunk from, and an identity parade.

The court heard he had been jailed for three years in 2006 after tricking his way into an elderly couple’s home in Keighley and stealing cash and jewellery.

Moyles, formerly of Keighley, but now living at Burlington Road, Beeston, Leeds, pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary. His solicitor advocate, Ray Singh, said the complainant had not been targeted and an acquaintance of Moyles’s had previously lived there.

He had been on an alcohol awareness course and was no longer taking illicit drugs.

The judge, Recorder Graham Hyland QC, said they were wicked offences. He told Moyles: “You have been a prolific burglar over many years. You are clearly capable of doing something with your life but the remedy is in your hands.”

He said the minimum sentence he could pass was three-and-a-half years.