Scarborough man jailed for burgling flat after shoulder-barging front door open

Dale Bonson, 41, broke into the property on North Marine Road while the victim and his partner were away on a summer camping trip, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Michael Cahill said that CCTV showed Bonson, a strapping figure, “breaking through the door with his shoulder” in the early hours of the morning.

He then walked away from the property but returned an hour later.

He then left again and returned for a second time but on this occasion he was met by police who had ostensibly been alerted by CCTV.

They found that Bonson had stolen a tin containing £60 cash and about £20 of scratch cards from the property.

He was arrested and brought in for questioning but denied the burglary, claiming he had “tripped and fallen into the door which caused it to become open”, said Mr Cahill.

However, Bonson later admitted the burglary, which occurred in August last year, and pleaded guilty to two separate offences of breaching a restraining order which was imposed in September last year and banned him from contacting and entering the street of his ex-partner.

Bonson, a department-store worker and drug user, first breached the order on November 25 by approaching the named woman in Eastfield and contacting her in early December when he made over 50 missed calls to her phone.

In one of those calls he left a voice message calling her a deeply insulting name.

The woman said Bonson’s behaviour had left her “feeling broken” emotionally and psychologically.

She said she now felt “worthless” and that Bonson was “capable of anything when he is at his worst”.

Bonson, of Northwold Road, Scarborough, appeared for sentence via video link today after being remanded in custody.

The court was told about his long criminal career dating back to his youth, including convictions for burglary, theft, handling stolen goods, affray, harassment, criminal damage, using violence to enter premises and breaching non-molestation and domestic-violence-protection orders.

The current restraining order to protect his ex-partner was imposed in 2023 after Bonson, who is a father, was convicted of harassment.

Defence barrister Nick Peacock asked judge Sean Morris to suspend the inevitable jail sentence because his client was in employment and the job was still open to him.

But Mr Morris said it had to be an immediate prison term for such serious offences and cited Bonson’s “terrible record for dishonesty (offences) and a bad record for…relationship offending”.

“The burglary was the invasion of a person’s own flat which is always very serious,” added the judge.

Bonson was jailed for 16 months but was told he would only have to serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.