A MAN will spend six months behind bars for breaking into a disabled woman’s home in the middle of the night and robbing her.

James Graham of Keirs Crescent in Patna was also charged with stealing a camera and a tyre inflator from a locked car, but he was caught out when he tried to sell the items to the car owner’s mother.

Depute Fiscal Lynda Carnochan told Ayr Sheriff Court: “On Wednesday, January 23 at 4pm, the witness parked her vehicle. The vehicle had a self lock system. She assumed it was activated and walked away from the car.

“At 8am on January 24, the witness returned to the car. The glovebox was now open. She then checked vehicle to see if anything had been removed.”

The woman noticed her explorer’s rucksack was missing, along with her Canon camera, a tyre pump and a torch. She contacted her mother to say she had been robbed who told her a man was trying to sell her the very same items before she called, claiming that he had found them on the street a couple of days prior.

The 41-year-old was thereafter traced by police and all items were returned except from a memory stick from within the camera.

Graham also pleaded guilty on a breaking and entering charge where he stole mobile phones and a charger from a disabled woman on the same night. The thief claimed to be topping up the woman’s medicine when she woke up at 4am and confronted him. Miss Carnochan told the court: “At 4am the complainer in charge two wakened as she heard noise. She heard the accused was in the living room, and wearing a scarf concealing his face. He said he was there to collect her medicine and go get it for her. The witness became very distressed.

Defending Graham, his solicitor Ian Gillies said: “On this particular day he met up with some people he used to know and took some substances. Tries to sell items to parents of person he stole them from. It’s inexplicable how he gets involved in something so serious after so many years since being out of trouble.”

Mr Gillies also told the court that Graham claims to know the woman he robbed but she doesn’t know him.

He was sentenced to six months in prison by Sheriff Desmond Leslie who seemed startled at the strange circumstances surrounding both charges.