A judge told a burglar he should ‘watch YouTube not pornography’ as she spared him a jail term for stealing £28,000 of tools and household equipment.
Peter Kerrigan, 21, broke into a £3.2m home in Fulham and a £1.1m house in Peckham when both properties were being renovated.
When he was sentenced this week, Recorder Samantha Presland handed him a two-year community order with rehabilitation days instead of a prison term.
And, unusually, she recommended the young defendant watch YouTube videos by Canadian physician and author Dr Gabor Maté for help with his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
“Watch YouTube videos on neuro-divergence, rather than watching pornography”, the judge told Kerrigan as he left the dock.
It was the first mention of pornography during the sentencing hearing.
The case comes after the Met Police announced the latest wave of its crackdown on tool theft, with £80,000 worth of stolen equipment recovered in a raid on a west London car boot sale.
Kerrigan was 19 when he carried out the burglaries on dates in April and August last year.
It is understood the expensive properties were targeted because they were under renovations.
Builders’ tools were stolen, along with household appliances which had only just been installed.
The judge started the court hearing by announcing she would not be jailing Kerrigan, and proceeded to talk over the prosecutor as he tried to present the facts of the crimes in open court.
The sentencing hearing lasted less than 15 minutes, as the judge cut short legal submissions, said she had already read the case papers, and she had a “busy list” of other hearings to deal with.
“These were two empty dwelling properties being renovated which were easy targets”, the judge said.
You weren’t the brains of the operation, you were simply there as a grunt
She had concluded before the hearing began that Kerrigan had been “roped into” the crimes.
“Clearly you fell under the influence of a man who is a persistent offender”, she told Kerrigan.
“As a 19-year-old, I’m going to accept you weren’t the brains of the operation, you were simply there as a grunt.
“This was extremely high value stuff being targeted, clearly targeting workmen’s tools which have an easy resale market.”
Kerrigan asked to be sentenced this month, more than a year after he pleaded guilty. He had originally been made to wait, in the hope he could be sentenced alongside his co-defendant if he was convicted at trial. But that trial is stuck in London’s chronic court backlog, and the judge agreed to sentence Kerrigan alone.
He has spent 14 months on a 12-hour electronically tagged curfew, which the judge characterised as “a form of house arrest”.
Under law, each day on a curfew which lasts at least nine hours counts as half a day of a prison term.
The judge originally said she was considering a suspended prison sentence, but then told Kerrigan: “You have already served the sentence I would have given you.
“You have served an unusually long period of time on a tag.”
She handed him a two-year community order with no community service, but 20 rehabilitation days with the probation service.
Kerrigan, of Bina Gardens in Havering, pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary. He must also pay a £114 victim surcharge.
