A burglar who broke into three houses on the same street in a matter of hours and engaged his victims in a series of bizarre conversations had taken so much Valium he has no memory of the incident. From one of the properties Jason Owen took a mobile phone which had belonged to the recently-deceased wife of the 73-year-old homeowner and had great sentimental value.
The 42-year-old defendant also tried to break into a parked car on the same road, telling the owner who rushed out to challenge him that he was only trying to free a man from the boot of the vehicle.
Sian Cutter, prosecuting at Swansea Crown Court, said the spate of offending began at lunchtime on February 23 this year when the owner of a Ford Kuga car saw Owen puling at the rear window wiper and trying to open the boot of the vehicle while it was parked by her house in Pantyffynnon Road in Ammanford. The owner rushed outside and challenged him and Owen walked off claiming he was "trying to get a man out of the car" and then said he was trying to retrieve his hi-vis jacket from inside.
