St Albans family discovered burglar in middle of raiding their home

A St Albans family returned home to discover a burglar clutching a Louis Vuitton bag he had stuffed with their jewellery.

Michael Pomroy, 36, handed back the bag and told them he had intervened when he saw the house in Townsend Drive was being burgled.

But, St Albans crown court heard the victims were suspicious of the line he had spun and chased after him as he escaped on a bike.

Prosecutor Neil King said Pomroy got away, but he and a woman accomplice were later arrested. A bedroom at the address had been ransacked and jewellery that had been taken was found on her.

Pomroy, of no fixed address but previously from Borehamwood, appeared for sentence for one domestic burglary, a series of commercial burglaries, common assault and criminal damage committed between May 2018 and February last year.

He asked for eight commercial burglaries and one theft, committed in Hertfordshire, to be taken into consideration. He had 44 convictions for 88 previous offences.

His woman accomplice from the St Albans break-in is on the run.

Mr King said most of the other offences were daytime walk-in commercial burglaries, where he picked up items and stole them.

Defending, Nicholas Maggs said he has been in custody for 18 months. Since the lockdown, he has been spending 23 hours a day in his cell and had not been able to attend courses or see his partner or children.

He said that on a number of occasions when committing crimes he was “the worse for wear”.

Although he had an appalling record, said Mr Maggs, he walked away when confronted.

Jailing him for five years and five months, Judge Philip Grey said the victims of the St Albans burglary would have felt “downright frightened” to have returned from a lunch out to find Pomroy leaving their home with a bag containing stolen jewellery.

He said: “Every householder has the right to feel safe and secure in their own home. The feeling of violation and anger is entirely justified.”