A NIGHT-TIME burglar who stood on a chair to creep in through a house window while the family were asleep has been jailed for 23 months.

Drug addict Jan Sugar scaled a two and a half metre wall to make off with a laptop and phone from an address in Ward Street, Great Horton, Bradford, on July 30.

Sugar, 39, sneaked round the house while a woman, her son and her granddaughter were in bed, prosecutor Philip Adams told Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

Less than a fortnight later, he was caught by the landlord sitting on a sofa eating a biscuit at a rented property in Rand Place, Great Horton.

He had picked up an out of date bank card and a phone from the address.

He was homeless and needed shelter.

Sugar had been caught on CCTV burgling the Pentecostal Church in Great Horton Road at 1.20am on July 10, Mr Adams said.

He pulled out the glass in the ladies lavatory to break into the building, but fled empty-handed when the burglar alarm went off.

Sugar was on bail when he was caught stealing shampoo and conditioner worth £31 from Tesco in Great Horton Road on August 28.

His previous convictions, including for offences of burglary, dated back to 2007, the court was told.

Sugar pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary and a charge of shoplifting.

Mr Adams said that the woman who was burgled at dead of night had been left shocked and anxious.

Her health had deteriorated, she felt unsafe in her home and she had trouble sleeping, the court heard.

Sugar’s solicitor advocate, Nick Leadbeater, said he offered his sincere apologies to the family he burgled.

Mr Leadbeater conceded that the church burglary was “a mean-spirited offence.”

However, he added that nothing was stolen during that incident.

Sugar was addicted to Class A drugs at the time and keen to spend time in prison to wean himself off them, the court heard.

Judge Jonathan Rose told Sugar: “You provide proof positive of the true evil of a Class A drug addiction.”

He said that house burglary was “an utterly selfish form of offending.”

Sugar had stalked the family home while the occupants were sleeping, leaving the grandmother shocked, anxious and finding it difficult to sleep.

Sugar had also burgled a house of worship.

“It is a place revered, esteemed and holy to the individuals who pray there; it matters not what denomination or faith," the Judge told Sugar.

“You violated this church. You desecrated it by your unlawful entry,” Judge Rose said.