A man was hit with a metal bar by a late-night house burglar fleeing the police, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Graham Stubbs suffered painful bruising to his hand when he tried to detain the intruder in his back garden.

Prolific house-breaker Scott Cross, 25, was locked up for three years and four months after he was discovered hiding in bushes near the burglary scene, the court was told yesterday.

Cross, of Kelsall House, Otley Road, Barkerend, Bradford, had been released on prison licence only two weeks earlier after serving a jail sentence for house- breaking.

He pleaded guilty to burgling a house in Shetland Close, Bolton, Bradford, on June 30 this year and assaulting Mr Stubbs, causing him actual bodily harm.

Cross had 22 previous convictions for stealing, or trying to steal, from people’s homes, the court was told.

He was sentenced under the “three strikes” provision that produces a minimum jail term of three years.

Judge John Potter told him he had a dreadful record for house- breaking. “You have caused untold misery to many people, in this city and beyond,” the judge said.

Prosecutor John Bull told the court that the police were called to Shetland Close shortly before midnight when a sharp-eyed neighbour saw a shadow cross his garden.

Officers who dashed to the scene used CS spray on Cross and his accomplice as they fled over a garden fence. Cross was found by a police dog.

A camera stolen from the house was hidden nearby.

Mr Bull said Cross did not accept that he hit Mr Stubbs with the bar.

The other burglar was never traced.

In mitigation, Cross’s barrister, Sukhbir Bassra, said his client got drunk that night and was persuaded by an old acquaintance to burgle the house.

He said Cross wanted to make a new start and had admitted four more burglaries, dating from 2007, under the police’s “Clean Slate” policy.