A mum awoke to find that a bloodied man had spent the night sleeping in her young son's bed.
The nurse got up and called her children to get ready for school before running a bath, but was then confronted by a stranger covered in blood on the landing. This intruder, Laurence Carthy, had broken into the house in order to steal items including games consoles but drunkenly passed out while doing so.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Friday, that Rebecca Redmond arose at her home in Rock Ferry, Wirral, around 8am on May 22 last year and shouted for her two children to get out of bed. Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, described how she then went to run a bath but upon exiting the room found the 32-year-old coming out of her son's bedroom.
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By chance, the boy had been poorly this previous evening and spent the night with his mum. Carthy, who was wearing the youngster's coat and had a "bloody cut" on his head, said: "Where am I, I don't know?"
As a "terrified" Ms Redmond escorted him out, he picked up his keys and mobile phone from the dining room. The burglar asked "which way do I go?" upon leaving the Bebington Road address, and was pointed in the direction of a nearby Tesco store.
The homeowner then noticed that items including a Nintendo Switch, another handheld games console, eight video games, an Amazon Fire box and vaping liquids had been bundled into a jacket which had been left on the sofa in the living room. Carthy, of Bentinck Place in Birkenhead, was linked to the break-in after leaving blood on the child's bed - where he is thought to have fallen asleep "heavily intoxicated" while finding items to steal.
Once arrested, he gave an "absurd" account under interview of having met Ms Redmond in the street and been invited back to her home. But she had headed straight back to her house after a late shift at Arrowe Park Hospital in order to tend to her sick son.
At the time of the incident, Carthy was out of prison on licence from a term he had been serving for robbery. Stuart Mills, defending, told the court: "He has, in many ways, a lot going for him.
"There is clearly substance to the man. He wants to be somewhere he can get into employment.
"He comes across as keen, he is able and he has a range of qualifications which permit him to work both on the railways and in the building industry. He is expressing all the right views about a better future for himself."
Carthy admitted burglary and was jailed for two years. He was also told to pay a victim surcharge.
Sentencing, Recorder Timothy Hannam KC said: "At some point the night before, you had gained entry to her home drunk but doubtless intending to steal. But you collapsed on her son's bed and fell asleep.
"You came out with a plainly untrue account that you had been invited into her home. She didn't know you at all.
"It is utter and complete nonsense. You have plainly exhibited no remorse."
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