A THIRD strike house burglar was today jailed for two years and eight months after raiding thousands of pounds worth of Asian gold jewellery from an address in Bradford.

Jordan Bottomley was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court via Skype and a video link to Leeds Prison for burgling the house in Dalecroft Rise, Allerton, on November 12 last year.

Bottomley, 26, of Briardale Road, Heaton, Bradford, was locked up for 876 days by Judge Jonathan Gibson. The sentence equates to three years’ imprisonment for a “third striker,” less credit for a guilty plea.

Bottomley was also jailed for 120 days to run consecutively after he admitted running on to a railway line on January 15 this year endangering the safety of a person being conveyed in or upon the railway.

He was one of eight men on remand behind bars who appeared before the court on Skype and video link today for offences including heroin trafficking, GBH and robbery.

Two judges were dealing with plea and case management hearings and listing trials behind closed doors because the building is shut to the public during the coronavirus pandemic.

But in a new innovation starting today members of the Press or public could view the cases on Skype at Leeds Crown Court because it is one of the court centres designated to stay open to the public during the crisis.

Convicted house burglar Jan Sugar, who is in HMP Doncaster after being jailed for 23 months in September, was given another six months on top of that for breaking into two more homes.

Sugar, 39, of no fixed address, raided properties in Great Horton Road and Turner Place, both Great Horton, Bradford, the court heard.

Last July he stood on a chair to creep in through a house window in Ward Street, Great Horton, to make off with a laptop computer and a phone. 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.

Joseph Smith, 21, of Summerfield Road, Idle, Bradford, pleaded to robbing a man of a Samsung S5 phone in Barkerend Road, Bradford, on February 21. He is in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.

In another case heard via Skype, Judge Jonathan Rose set a trial date for confectionary giant Nestle UK Limited who have been charged by the Health and Safety Executive with “failing to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all your employees including Andrew Jones whilst carrying out interventions in the After Eight Line.”

The allegation is said to have happened on February 13, 2016, at Albion Mills, Hall Road, Halifax.

The five-day trial was fixed for January 5, 2021.