A BURGLAR who ‘ransacked’ a family-owned garage in Marston for £90 of cigarettes has been jailed.

Magistrates in Warrington said Mark Brennan has 'a flagrant disregard for people and their property’ which meant ‘only a custodial sentence could be justified’.

Brennan climb on top of a rubbish bin to get onto the roof of Four Lanes Garage on Marston Road, Marston, when he broke in on Wednesday, April 12, after it closed.

The 39-year-old then tore a hole in the corrugated metal roof to get inside.  

Police officers investigating said once inside, he ‘ransacked’ the garage, but came away with just one carton of Lambert and Butler Silver cigarettes worth £90 for his trouble.

Forensic officers were able to trace the crime to Brennan by comparing DNA found at the scene with database records.

He was arrested at his home on Fleet Lane, St Helens, on Sunday, October 1, and was taken to Runcorn custody suite. 

He gave a ‘no comment’ interview, but was later charged with one count of burglary other than a dwelling.

Brennan pleaded guilty at his first appearance at Chester Magistrates Court on Monday, October 2.

At his sentencing hearing at Chester on Friday, December 1, Alan Page, prosecuting, read a victim impact statement from Four Lanes Garage’s owner.

It stated he’d had been put to ‘considerable inconvenience’ by Brennan’s break-in, as well as three others which have happened in the last year.  

Due to the building’s construction, the owner said, there isn’t much he can do to make it more secure, which meant the break-ins were causing huge hikes in his insurance premiums.

He added the garage is the main source of income for him and his son, and both had been caused ‘significant distress’ by what had happened.

Mr Page went on to tell the court Brennan has eight convictions for dishonesty between 1999 and 2012, and was handed a community order for burglary in August this year, including 110 hours unpaid work.  

Defending, Zoe Keene said Brennan had ‘been in a bit of trouble’ when he was younger, but had ‘got settled’, and had lived a law-abiding life for a long time.

She added he only started to reoffend when the delivery firm he worked for went bust this year, and he lost his job.  

Miss Keene then requested the hearing be adjourned as no pre-sentence report had been made.

The bench agreed to do this, and set a new date for sentencing of Friday, December 8, before Warrington magistrates.

At that hearing, for the garage burglary, Brennan was sentenced to 16 weeks in jail.

He was sentenced to a further eight weeks, to be served consecutively, for breaching a community order made by Wirral magistrates on August 14. 

This takes his total sentence to 24 weeks in jail. 

He was also ordered to pay £120 court costs, and £90 compensation to the garage owner.