A member of a burglary gang that raided cash, property and a car to the value of £23,000 from a family home was today jailed for three years.

Liam Sherriff climbed through a window at the unoccupied country home near Bingley and let his accomplices in with the house keys, Bradford Crown Court heard.

The gang made an untidy search of every room while the couple and their baby were out for a drive on the afternoon of May 10 last year, prosecutor Hannah Walker said.

The family returned to find their Vauxhall Corsa gone, along with £700 in cash, jewellery, laptop computers, bank cards, tools and electronic equipment.

Miss Walker said the total value of the items stolen was almost £23,000.

The man told the police he arrived home to find the car missing, drawers open and eve-rywhere in a mess. A door had been damaged by the raiders.

Sherriff, 31, of Crawford Avenue, Odsal, Bradford, pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced on a video link to Leeds Prison where he had been remanded since July.

The court heard he left his jacket at the burglary scene with his DNA on it.

A phone stolen in the break-in was tracked to near his home address, Miss Walker added.

She said Sherriff was the only member of the gang to be arrested and brought to justice.

He had two convictions for house burglary, dating from 2007 and 2014, as part of 16 previous convictions for 24 offences. They also included theft and handling stolen goods.

Jayne Beckett said in mitigation that Sherriff was usually in work but the pandemic put a stop to that and he was worried about providing for his partner and the children.

He now had a baby he had not yet seen and another of the children was poorly, she said.

Sherriff had been taking a maths course from his cell and was very keen to get his life back on track and to continue to provide for his family.

Judge Jonathan Gibson said the burglars made off with a significant amount of property, including money and the car, and made an untidy search of the house.

They struck after the family had left to go out for the afternoon.

“There seems to be an inference that you had been watching the house,” Judge Gibson said.

Sherriff was also in breach of a suspended sentence order for handling stolen goods. He was jailed for a total of three years.