Stuart Campbell earned himself an eight-year jail sentence by wearing a newly fitted GPS tracking device on his leg while raiding five houses
A bungling burglar earned himself an eight-year jail sentence by wearing a newly fitted GPS tracking device on his leg while raiding five houses.
Prosecutors claimed it was the first such case in Britain.
Career criminal Stuart Campbell, 42, had committed more than 200 burglaries in the past, and had even been nicknamed ‘The Creeper’ by police, thanks to his skill at stealing items from bedrooms as the occupants slept just inches away.
But his reputation for stealth deserted him after he agreed to be fitted with the satellite tracking device while on probation. It provided irrefutable evidence of his guilt for fresh crimes on the very day it was fitted.
Portsmouth crown court heard yesterday that Campbell had been released from prison in June after serving three years for burglary.
Upon his release he voluntarily agreed to have a GPS tracker fitted to his leg, which the Integrated Offender Management Unit was to monitor.
He failed to charge it properly, but it started working regardless – and within hours of it being put on his leg, he went out on a crime spree.
James Kellam, prosecuting, said after the hearing: ‘Stuart Campbell is a prolific burglar with an appalling criminal history, having been before the courts 31 times between 1987 and 2014.
‘The night after the tracker was fitted in June this year, Mr Campbell committed five burglaries in a residential area of Waterlooville in Hampshire, stealing mainly contents of handbags, keys, credit cards and cash.’
Cambell, of Havant in Hampshire, only then cut the tracker off his leg. But it was too late. When he came under suspicion for the wave of burglaries he was immediately a suspect.
Portsmouth crown court heard yesterday that Campbell had been released from prison in June after serving three years for burglary. Upon his release he voluntarily agreed to have a GPS tracker fitted to his leg, which the Integrated Offender Management Unit was to monitor
Mr Kellam continued: ‘When analysing the data from the tracker, the Integrated Offender Management Unit was able to trace Campbell’s movement before he discarded the device.
‘The data placed him at the scene of each and every burglary with which he was charged.
‘Faced with the compelling evidence provided to us by Hampshire Police, he was left with no choice but to plead guilty.
‘This case, which we believe is the first in which data from a GPS tracker has been used to secure a conviction, demonstrates how advancing technologies help us build stronger cases to put before the court.’
As well as pleading guilty to the five GPS-tracked crimes Campbell asked for another 12 burglaries to be taken into consideration.
Five years ago it was reported that the self-confessed ‘professional burglar’ had gained an extra criminal string to his bow while inside for housebreaking – when he got another nine months for dealing cannabis worth more than £1,250 to fellow convicts.
He bungled his criminal activities on that occasion too. He had known police were due to visit him to seek more confessions of burglaries – but the officers arrived at the jail earlier than expected, and when they performed their usual routine search they found the huge drugs stash in his underpants. He had been selling the cannabis at cell doors.
Campbell, a heroin and cocaine addict, was jailed for five years in 2005 for 126 burglaries, but within three years was out and being convicted for burgling another 80 houses.