A prolific crook taken on his first burglary by his dad aged just 15 has been jailed for more than four years after breaking into a Whitehaven house and punching the occupant as he tried to escape.
Allan Dryden, aged 36, made a swift return to his criminal ways on the evening of January 9, just weeks after being released from prison following a previous house raid.
Carlisle Crown Court heard the householder had been away from his Monkwray Brow property briefly, leaving his elderly parents inside. On his return, he was confronted by Dryden who replied, when asked what he was doing: “I’m committing a robbery.”
Dryden punched the man, causing a cut to his lip, while barging past him in a bid to leave the property. The man tried to detain Dryden but was punched again as the intruder left.
“The householder found a cash card bearing the name ‘Allan Dryden’, a Samsung mobile phone and an e-cigarette which had been discarded on the path leading to his front door,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told the court.
Dryden, who had made a brief return to the scene of his crime to demand the return to his phone, was found by police in the area of his former home at Lakeland Avenue.
Said to have a very substantial criminal record, he had committed six previous house burglaries since 2003 and triggered the mandatory three-year minimum prison sentence twice before.
He had been recalled to custody on licence to serve the remainder of his last lengthy sentence, which was imposed in 2020 for burgling a family’s home as children slept.
Kim Whittlestone, defending, spoke of Dryden’s “extremely sad” family background, and revealed he had been taken on his first burglary by his father as a teenager. He had moved to the North East after his last release in a bid to escape negative associates but returned to Cumbria homeless after the probation service deemed a new address unsuitable.
“He is pragmatic and well aware the court is going to impose a lengthy custodial sentence today,” said Miss Whittlestone.
Passing a sentence of 49 months after Dryden admitted burglary with intent to steal, Judge Nicholas Barker told him: “What is plain is that you have no respect or regard for the privacy of others and their homes.”
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