A “15th STRIKE” housebreaker caught trying to smash his way into a pregnant woman’s home with a spade told her: “We’re here to do gardening.”

Michael Coultous immediately targeted a neighbouring home, plundering valuable wedding jewellery, after he was caught red-handed shattering the window bracket with the shovel.

Coultous, 50, was labelled a “third strike” burglar, but Bradford Crown Court heard that 14 home break-ins featured on his criminal record of 37 convictions for 53 offences.

During his 33 years of breaking the law, the longest prison sentence Coultous had received was three years, prosecutor Abdul Shakoor told the court.

Yesterday, Coultous, of Draughton Street, Bankfoot, Bradford, was locked up for two years and eight months after he pleaded guilty on the day of his trial to attempting to burgle a house in Carrbottom Road, Wibsey, and burgling a home on the same street, on the afternoon of June 12.

Mr Shakoor said the heavily pregnant occupier of the first property was disturbed at 3.30pm by Coultous knocking on the door. When she went downstairs to investigate, she saw him trying to prise open a window with a large spade.

“We are here to do gardening, in the front garden and the back garden,” he said, before making off.

The police were called and when they searched the area, they found that a kitchen window had been removed at a neighbouring property. An untidy search had been made of the house and a Playstation and £3,000 worth of wedding jewellery stolen. The spade, recovered from a nearby garden, had Coultous’s DNA on it. He denied the offences even after the woman at the first property picked him out at an identity parade.

In a victim personal statement, she told the court she had been frightened that Coultous would use the spade to attack her when she caught him trying to break in.

Nigel Jamieson, Coultous’s barrister, said his life had been blighted by his heroin use.

“He has lost years of his life in prison as a result of that addiction,” Mr Jamieson said.

When Coultous was last freed from jail, he was drug free and completed his licence period with no problem. But difficulty finding accommodation saw him begin taking heroin again and the offending followed on from that. He had gone out looking for work that day. He did not set out on a burglary expedition, Mr Jamieson said.

While he was remanded in custody, Coultous’s partner had given birth to twins, giving him new motivation to make a fresh start in life.