A CAREER burglar who inflicted “immense trauma” on a family by stealing a high-value car and then returning to the scene to try and hide blood-stained evidence has been jailed for nearly four years.

Bahader Khan, 28, pleaded guilty to being part of a group who committed the raid on a house in Whitehill Green, Illingworth, Halifax, on May 9.

Prosecutor Richard Walters told Bradford Crown Court that at around 3.50am, the family at the house, including two young children, were disturbed by men trying to smash down their front door with a rock.

The gang had also used a blowtorch to try and melt the locks to gain access to the property.

Despite the family trying to disturb the men by shouting at them, they managed to smash a kitchen window and steal the keys to a Volkswagen Golf and drive the vehicle away.

The car contained a work laptop and projector, and Mr Walters said that the items stolen were worth £31,000.

Police attended the scene to speak to the family, but at 6am, around 20 minutes after officers left, the gang returned to the house to try and dispose of any evidence linking them to the crime.

After again hearing a noise, the family saw one of the group trying to put glass from the broken window into a recycling bag along with some blinds, which had earlier been smashed with a crowbar.

The gang fled the scene, but police were able to recover items that after DNA analysis were found to be stained with Khan’s blood, and he was arrested from his home address on Springwood Gardens, Bradford.

The defendant pleaded guilty to two offences of burglary.

Mr Walters said that Khan had numerous previous convictions for burglary and was on-licence at the time of the offences after being given a 68-month sentence for conspiracy to burgle in 2015, linked to his role in a gang who broke into houses to steal cars in the Cleckheaton and Wakefield areas.

Jailing Khan for 44 months, Judge David Hatton QC said he was a ‘third-strike’ burglar with an “appalling criminal record.”

He said despite disturbing the family during the break-in, Khan had “pressed on regardless in your pursuit.”

He told Khan: “You had the audacity and impertinence to return to the property with a view to covering your tracks, to the further stress of the occupants.

“The trauma suffered by this family was immense. Trauma after a burglary is normal, but the trauma in this case will have been more than normal.”