A burglar who broke into Carlisle’s civic centre during lockdown last spring, stealing £10,000-worth of electronic equipment, has been jailed.
Heavily-convicted Luke Jenkinson, 27, gained access to the Rickergate building through a side door on Sunday, March 7, 2021, before making off with expensive electrical items.
This comprised around £10,000 of computer equipment — laptops, mobile phones and an iMac computer — which was never recovered.
Crime scene investigators found fingerprints at the scene, on laptop packaging. These provided a match to Jenkinson. An alarm monitoring company reported several activations at the civic centre.
Jenkinson had been staying in accommodation nearby and further enquiries revealed he had left this address at around the time of these activations.
When he appeared at Carlisle Crown Court this morning, Jenkinson admitted a charge of burglary.
Judge Nicholas Barker noted that Jenkinson, of St Peter’s Street, Blackburn, had many previous convictions.
He had since served a six-month prison sentence for previous offending, before being arrested for the civic centre crime the day after he was released from custody.
Imposing a 19-week jail term for the Carlisle crime, Judge Barker told Jenkinson: “Computers of course are valuable items of equipment. As we all understand and appreciate, the loss of them can cause significant inconvenience to those who use the devices if they are configured for personal use.”
