Career Burglar Gets Two-and-a-half Years In Jail

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Career-burglar-gets-two-and-a-half-years-in-jail.htm

Burglary was Anthony Gawthrop’s career and he was a hard worker, with a CV boasting loot worth more than £130,000 from 114 raids.

The 25-year-old, who said the only thing he was good at was breaking into other people’s homes, was targeting almost one property a week for much of 2010.

But the seven-year spree across the Cambridge area came to an end after Gawthrop tried to sell a pilfered car to an undercover police officer and left his mobile phone at a victim’s address.

Yesterday, Gawthrop was jailed for two-and-a-half years at the city’s Crown court.

Judge Gareth Hawkes¬worth branded him a "professional and prolific house burglar" but halved the expected term of five years after agreeing there were "very exceptional circumstances" in the case.

The court heard the thief genuinely wanted to put his past behind him and had beaten his drug addiction.

Gawthrop, of Arran Close, Cherry Hinton, pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary, and asked for a further 112 to be taken into considera¬tion.

The earliest of these dated to 2003 and 38 happened last year.

He admitted one charge of attempted burglary, and owned up to a further 10 – plus cannabis possession.

Gawthrop was already infamous for vaulting out of the Crown court dock in 2005 and since then had received two jail terms, each of three-and-a-half years, for numerous burglaries and cocaine supply.

John Farmer, prosecuting, said the first of the latest burglary charges dated to April 28 last year, when Gawthrop was one of three intruders who broke into an empty house in Longstanton and made off with swag valued at £3,200, plus two cars, valued at £21,500.

While the raid was in progress one of Gawthrop’s accomplices’ called a police officer who was working undercover and offered to sell him one of the cars, a Nissan valued at £10,000 – and the deal was done for £400 in Milton just minutes later.

Gawthrop was not arrested at this stage to allow the undercover operation to continue and he struck again on June 9, when he was caught red-handed trying to break into a house in Bar Hill with two co-conspirators after a neighbour dialled 999.

Then, on August 28, the home of a Polish family on Minerva Way in Cambridge was broken into, and a laptop computer and mobile phone were stolen.

But Gawthrop left his phone behind, with pictures of himself on.

Mr Farmer said the total value of the goods stolen, including in the offences taken into consideration, was around £130,000, but because the value of items is often not recorded, the real total is likely to be much higher.

Mr Farmer said: "The upshot is pretty well an average in 2010 of one a week."

Georgina Gibbs, mitigating, said Gawthrop had had started committing crime at the age of 10 but had beaten drugs, hoped to move away from Cambridge with his long-term partner, and had a job lined up.

She said: "He describes himself as only being good at one thing, namely burglary, but he was good at it and he started a career in that line of work."

Afterwards, Det Chief Insp Chris Mead, who led the police operation, said Gawthrop’s assistance would help burglary prevention advice to be improved.

a year ago today

Time goes so quickly it very ceases to scare the hell out of me. Exactly a whole year ago today I was, around this time give an hour or take an hour, being rushed to hospital after having respiratory & heart failure, where I was kept overnight before duly coming round and leaving that next day in the early afternoon. What scares me is the state I was in last year. Yes, I had detoxed off methadone (being clean and drunk and doing that fateful shot of cocaine & heroin which lets face it, was only about 1/15th of my normal dosage but hey, thats what kills, sober people underestimating their tolerance) but my head was not in a good place. I was boozing all the time with my 'mate' and I just never stopped. I couldn't sleep due to my lack of opiates so instead of drinking normal hours, I was drinking all hours. My body was in such a mess. Last year, I didn't even remember that, before I took that shot which I knew was playing russian roulette with my life, it was my twin nieces 6th birthday in 2 days. It didn't register. I don't even remember their birthday last year. I was there, but I don't remember. I cannot believe that. Makes me feel very ashamed. Anyway, today I went out and met my keyworker to help me fill in my DLA (Disability Living Allowance) forms and deal with housing. and got the twins their birthday presents. I was ducking and diving through town, avoiding everyone I could. I purchased 2x £20 heroin and 1x £20 crack cocaine on Wednesday. I have loads of crack left and just under a bag of gear. Can't believe I made it last so long. It is no coincidence that my drinking has gone down loads. When I don't have gear, I booze to excess. I feel so much healthier on heroin than I do alcohol. Oh, the sheer irony! It isn't the actual heroin that makes it the devils drug, its the implications due to it being illegal. When I went to the chemist today I saw this women who must be about 40 who was a junkie but looks absolutely smoking, fucking beautiful mumma she is. She doesn't drink a drop but was banging up like it was going out of fashion most of her life. Can you tell? Nope.

I presume everybody has heard about the G20 Summit Protests in London. Now, the officer who shoved Ian Tomlinson to the ground has been arrested for Manslaughter. It has been interesting sitting in the pub over the last few days, listening to some very very educated peoples wide ranging opinions on the matter. I had seen in the newspaper, stills of the women and a policeman with his truncheon raised. It wasn't until today I saw it on the widescreen TV of the pub in motion. I listened to her words and I listened to one say to us "completely brutal... thank god we have brave people like her standing up for what they believe in". Completely brutal... ummm, perhaps a bit heavy handed. Brave? BRAVE? WHAT A FUCKING JOKE! Brave is what the women in Kabul were on Wednesday when they marched peacefully through the streets against what effectively are pro-rape laws. Along the way they were spat at and people threw stones at them. This women in the YouTube film is winding up this copper, going back and back to him. You can hear something along the lines of "i'm a woman" as if this means her behaviour can be excused, they will whack you women or man. If you are told to back off you don't keep on going back and back to a copper do you? All it seems is the mob mentality whipped her up into a bit of a frenzy and they were just having a go at the nearest authority figure (in this case, the long lines of cops). Don't get me wrong, I'm not sticking up for the cops but don't these people realise they can't exactly have a lengthy debate about climate change with the riot police while on duty.

Also, I couldn't help but cringe a little as the 40 and 50-somethings around the bar were laughing out loud at "my generation" as they held banners at the protest while carrying cans of Scrumpy Jack, smoking fags and wearing shoes that probably cost god knows how much financially and envionmentally to ship from China. Eh. I know its not plausible to be 100% green overnight and its not going to happen but ooooh, I felt a little embarrased for them. They just looked like apathetic youths wanting to have a go about anything, passionate enough to get up and protest for the cause but not passionate enough to not swig their way through cans of booze throughout it. Here I am talking about giving things a bad name but they sat and took the royale piss out of them and it touched a nerve with me as I am their age. And why? Because I think terrorism is terrible, the sex trade is terrible, violence is terrible... but I contribute to it all by buying illegal drugs. I felt like the burning hypocrite in the room, I really did.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE POLICE!

whoever fucking decided to raid a 20 year old girls flat who doesn’t have a criminal record is a fucking twat. sorry, but did any police watch me? they couldn’t of because i wasn’t even anywhere near my house for weeks. so if i didn’t go to my flat for ages, why would my flat be full of drugs? what, you think a junkie is going to leave loads of heroin and crack in their flat but not visit it and devour them? duh. i know who provided this ‘information’ aka bollox. they were obviously pissed off they couldn’t find anything because they gave up searching (they didn’t even break open all my locked cupboards, my safe etc. as i think they got the picture i had nothing. but if i did, twats didn’t open the most obvious hiding place). BUT NOT WITHOUT smashing shit loads of my stuff. i had a massive oil painting of me that they smashed apart (presumebly to look inside for drugs?) which will cost me a bomb to fix. they smashed all my plates, cups etc. by just swiping all my kitchen cupboard contents onto the floor. they tipped out all my fabrics, trimmings etc. on the floor, smashing loads of glass beads, smashing my acrylic paints open. now i have to get a solicitor to claim back all the damage INCLUDING the fact they broke down my door, didn’t secure it, and i got burgled. yes, i got burgled as a result. i can’t believe this, i just want peace and quiet. the police took one look at why the door was so easy to re-break (a drugs raid; even though i was found 100% innocent with no drugs) and didn’t give a fuck about helping me. he arrested and bailed the two found guilty for it but are they going to get charged? are they fuck! they don’t want to help a junkie but if i were a middle-class mother of two they would of sat me down, consolled me and done everything in their power to bring the two to justice. police, why are you such bastards? my mum is a nurse and when somebody with self-inflicted injuries comes in (Whether its an alcoholic with liver disease, a self-harmer with an injury that needs stitching or an anorexic with severe life-threatening malnutrition) SHE CANNOT AND DOESN’T AND WOULDN’T DREAM OF GOING “hmmm… they bought it on themselves, sorry. not going to treat you. next.” but police can do that, and they do.
soooo… on another note. i had a good time in bradford. however, i went clubbing, came out at 4am and yes, HEROIN AND CRACK COCAINE FOUND ME! even though i don’t have a clue who to score off there. a person begging outside the club asked for a cig and i gave them one, she saw my arms and said “oh god, you don’t look like your on gear but thats a bit of a fucking giveaway, you want to cover them up girl. though i suppose, non-junkies won’t know, will they?” so yes. i spent £60 on drugs and went to some filthy crack den before returning to my hotel and telling my mum i had gone for a curry. gone for a curry? i went for a big massive hit and the reason i was falling asleep so much the next morning while watching I AM LEGEND is because i saved a £15 bag, shot it up and it knocked me for six when combined with no sleep, methadone & loads of booze. i might aswell kiss goodbye my life now. im going to go over one of these days.
i’ll be brown bread before i know it.

XMAS EVE

woke up pretty early, 7am. thats early for me. im just sitting here drinking jack daniels & coke. oh, how i love that it is socially acceptable to drink this early when its christmas! well, at least, at 10.30am onwards, not from 7am when i started. i got mugged of my brand new Samsung D900i last Sunday. a boy hit me and snatched it. i tried to fight him off but wasn’t strong enough. some lady in her house called the police and i was in the station until 4am in the morning making a statement. did they do anything? of course not. i need to ban the phone, by retrieving the incident crime number and ringing up 02. i don’t want that fucker to get anything out of it. its bright pink, so he will sell it or give it to his girlfriend/mum. i only had it a week, and thats £150 down the drain (my £50 memory card was in it).
my arms are dropping off, aching, dying. i went shopping on saturday for gifts and they were so heavy i pulled a muscle in my back and was just stuck on the spot and couldn’t move. in the busy shopping centre i had to buy a suitcase and put as much as i could in it, as nobody offered to help me (who does in this day in age; a couple walked past me hand in hand as i was getting mugged and done nothing, not even called cops) as i stood there unable to bend down. i had to kick all my bags along the floor into the luggage shop, which hurt bad enough. but anyway, important thing is, i got all the presents. i would write what they are now but my family will read this and then the cover will be blown. but my mum, who constantly slags me off, should feel proud of me that i had £250 that i spent all on presents when i could of gone on a crack and smack binge and got everyone a present worth £5 each. her presents come to £95 alone. hissssssssssss mum. she is being such a bitch, she is pushing me to the brink telling me i’m killing my nan, ruining their relationship. shouldn’t she know the only way i can change things is by not being here? what she want me to do, top myself?
im off to pick up my script. and get last minute presents.

clean for a while

im knackered. lack of sleep. sunday night i was walking home and i got mugged of my brand new samsung d900i that i purchased a few days prior. i was happily going along listening to music on it and i just felt somebody punch me. tried to hold on to it for as long as possible but i couldnt in the end, which might of had something to do with him stamping on my head? a couple just walked past me while it happened, and i tried to run after him but he was on a bike so i couldnt catch up in the end. some lady in her house called the police and i was sitting in the station until 4am. i really didn’t want to, i mean, what was the point? we all know the police aren’t going to do anything about it. but neh, how irritating. i have a clean criminal record and wouldn’t dream of stealing off someone, so i find it hard to comprehend when i hear or experience first hand stuff like this. i just hope to come across him again.
apart from that, nothing new to report i suppose. i need to go christmas shopping. i have so much to get for people. i have an appointment on thursday for a new prescription. i have actually stayed clean. can you believe that? im drug free. it doesn’t help that the phone i had stolen had all my dealers numbers in…. or does it? actually, i think it does. thats good, right? that i can’t get in touch with them. might be the case but now i’m just drinking a bottle of vodka a day and about 8 special brew. great. Helen Tilley should be giving birth soon. Sods law it will happen while I’m in Bradford over New Year.
I get paid tonight. I just have to resist the urge to go out and buy a load of heroin and crack for a massive session. I think I can do it, if I lay off the booze, because I have no self-control when I’m drunk. And I need to give a clean sample for this weeks drug test. I have to. Of course, after my appointment at 2.30pm Thursday, I’m going to go and buy the biggest amount of smack and crack you have ever seen and hit it up into my feet like there is no tomorrow… and who knows? maybe my tollerance will have dropped so much there won’t be!

forced entry into my humble abode

well, im all happy and smug, carrying bags of christmas presents and the wrapping paper i am going to adorn them in. been trapsing all day buying presents for my family. been slugging my guts out making sure i have the right things for the right members of family.
THEN…. I think, oh, i will pop back to my flat. I get there and WHAT DO I SEE?
My flat has been broken into. The door lock has been replaced with a cheap wooden one; why? Because, the police have forced entry. Why? I DONT KNOW. ALL I KNOW IS THERE WAS THIS POOR PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR AN EXPLINATION ON MY FRONT DOOR WHEN I TRIED TO GO THERE TONIGHT AT 7pm. No, i haven’t committed a crime, otherwise, the council wouldn’t be telling me i could go get my new keys to the new lock. But, of course, I have to get those on Week Days, unless I want to ring the emergancy number, which is for… ummm… emergancies… am i an emergancy? i have had my lock changed, my flat broken into, i have no working keys, and i want to get into my house? is that an emergancy? i hope so. it annoys me that the council, etc. etc. have my contact number… they have THREE DIFFERENT CONTACT NUMBERS AND BEFORE THEY BROKE DOWN MY DOOR THEY DIDNT RING ONE OF THEM! why didn’t they? if they rung my mum, she could of given them my key. if they rung my sister, she could of also. if they rung me, i would of let them in. sorry, but they are crazy! i am completely co-operational… why didnt they come to me first before breaking down my flat door? all i’m thinking is, wow, what the fuck has happened?

scared to death

i got up at 10am today, but to be honest, i needed the sleep. yesterday, i didn’t get to bed until 3am when the police dropped me off back home. no, i didn’t do anything wrong (ive got a clean criminal record). earlier on in the day when i met my ECHG worker danni, we rang the police and asked if i could make a statement. they said they would come see me in the afternoon. they didn’t ring me until 11pm at night and thats when they picked me up. i didn’t get back until 3am. hence why i was tired, and i had to get up at 9am. they arrested him at 4am in the morning and he didnt get released until 3pm. he would of been so ill from lack of heroin. even though i had 2 seperate letters he had sent me confessing and apologising for beating me up, my broken phone he smashed up which was still covered in my blood, and the injuries to my body- he was released without charge. i feel bad i told on him and he had to go cold turkey. i thought everyone in the street life circle would hate me and call me a grass, but everyone has said “you will be suprised how we dont mind you contacting the police when its regarding a male hitting a woman”. so i feel slightly better. i can’t walk down the street without shitting myself, ill have to see him at some point. i’m petrified. i am so frightened. i did a swab drugs test yesterday when i went for my methadone prescription. hidden in my bra was some clean piss (which i had just paid £40 for in the form of £20 heroin and £20 crack) but she did a swab from my mouth and i lied and said i was clean. riiiiiiiiiiite…. obviously its going to come up negative. bollox. i am off to meet dylan. i am so angry. pissed off. scared. i’m going to get my commupance. lack of evidence meant he is off scott free. i knew that.

life is good?

yes, life is good.
i went through an awful time a few weeks back. i was a witness in court alongside my momma and sis and a few others and it really took it out of me, physically and mentally. it was horrible. i dont know why i bothered. they got off anyway. i say i will never do it again but i couldnt just sit back and let them get away with it, even though they did in the end.
my arm. i have an awful infection from 3 weeks ago. the gear was awfully filthy with terrible black bits in it, and i actually skin popped as opposed to mainline so there was no blood in it. 7 days ago it started to swell, get sore, go boiling hot. my mum being a nurse checked it a few days ago and was so stunned. i went to the doctors and now im on 2 flucloxacillin + 4 penicillin 4 times a day. mum said i hope this teaches you a lesson. does it? yes, for once. i got cut off my methadone ages ago so i have to use, but im down to less than a ten bag a day. i use only when i get ill. for once, i am feeling good. happy even. i desperately want to get onto subutex as methadone still made me feel as if i was on gear… no motivation, lethargic. and i cant go through with cold turkey. i tried last week but lasted 2 days. i just cant do that without detox + rehab, not yet.
good news? I HAVE A FLAT! my own, again. but this time, im not going to fill it with waifs & strays and junkies and drug dealers. ive not told anyone. ive had a couple staying with me for 4 months, who have never paid me a penny in rent… and they are just expecting they are coming with me. are they? NO WAY. i think they know it. but i have done so much for them and i cant do it anymore.
anyway, this place is beautiful. its absolutely massive. huge bedroom, huge living room, huge kitchen, beautiful new bathroom, balcony. ive started to paint the ceilings white. i am having seychelle blue for the front room and lemon fizz for the bedroom. i have no money to get anything else so my worker has helped me apply for a community care grant so i can get a cooker, fridge, bed, sofa, carpets. i feel so positively happy i really do. this is make or break for me. my own little home. and it has the cutest little name too does my street.
im going to start writing again regularly. well, im off to buy more decorating supplies. im doing up most of the interior myself. ill show you pics later.