A BURGLAR who broke into an 80-year-old man’s home at dead of night, dragged his safe from the wardrobe and rolled it down the stairs has been jailed for three years.

Bradley Robertshaw appeared for sentence yesterday on a video link to HMP Leeds, where he is serving a sentence of eight years and nine months for threatening a householder with a sword to steal his car keys.

Robertshaw, 24, and an accomplice, forced their way into the pensioner’s address in Crown Drive, Wyke, Bradford, at 3am on Monday, January 14.

Prosecutor Philip Adams told Bradford Crown Court that the occupier, who lived alone and was in poor health, was woken after the intruders got in through the patio doors.

The victim, who was confronted by the men who were wearing head torches, tried to get out of bed to tackle them as they stole the heavy safe, containing cash, from his wardrobe.

They rolled it down the stairs but abandoned it on the patio as the elderly man shouted to alert his neighbour.

He was treated in hospital for a nasty gash to his arm, although Mr Adams could not say how that happened.

Robertshaw’s DNA was on a pickaxe handle near the victim’s front door, kept there because he had been previously been troubled by intruders.

On June 6, Robertshaw was locked up for eight years and nine months at Bradford Crown Court for his role in burgling an apartment in Queensbury on February 24.

He and his co-accused smashed their way in while the occupant was asleep and held a sword to his head, before fleeing with his car keys, tools, cigarettes and cash.

The man had left his bedroom to investigate when he was confronted by the two hooded intruders.

The sword, that had a two-foot long blade, caused a minor cut when Robertshaw placed it against the victim’s forehead.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and theft of a vehicle in relation to that offence.

Yesterday, Robertshaw admitted burgling the elderly man’s home and stealing a safe and cash.

His barrister, Shufqat Khan, said his client was already serving a very lengthy sentence for burglary.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, labelled Robertshaw’s offending: “Dreadful, disgraceful and cowardly.”

He warned him that he faced life imprisonment in the future if he did not mend his ways.

“The sentence on you, Bradley Robertshaw, if it is aggravated burglary, will be life with a minimum term of eight or nine years,” Judge Durham Hall said.

The three-year jail term, starting today, will not extend the time that Robertshaw spends behind bars.