A mum was left horrified when she woke up to find that a bloodied stranger had stayed the night in her young son's bed. The nurse had gotten up to get her kids ready for school and was met with an intoxicated intruder covered in blood on the landing.
Laurence Carthy had broken into the house the night before as he planned to rob items including game consoles from the family but had failed to complete the task before he passed out drunk. Rebecca Redmond had woken up in her home in Rock Ferry, Wirral on May 22 last year at around 8am and had gone to get her children out of bed, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
During the trial on December 23, Prosecutor Arthur Gibson told the court that Rebecca had gone to run a bath but after she exited the room she discovered the 32-year-old leaving her son's bedroom. Luckily, the youngster had been under the weather the night before and slept with his mum instead.
Carthy emerged from the room wearing the boy's coat and had a 'bloody cut' on his head as he asked: "Where am I, I don't know?" The 'terrified' mother walked him out the home after he collected his keys and mobile phone from her dining room and he was pointed in the direction of a nearby Tesco store when he asked: 'which way do I go?'
Ms Redmond realised a short while later that multiple items were missing from her home including a Nintendo switch, eight video games, another handheld games console and an Amazon Fire box. She also discovered vaping liquids had been stuffed into her son's jacket which was lying on the sofa in the living room.
Carthy, of Bentinck Place in Birkenhead was tied to the robbery after he left blood stains on the child's bed where he is thought to have passed out for the night while 'while heavily intoxicated'. After the 32-year-old was arrested, he made up an 'absurd' story that he had met Ms Redmond in the street and was asked to come back to her home.
He said that she had then headed straight back to her home after a late shift at Arrowe Park Hospital to ensure her poorly son was okay. At the time of the incident, Carthy was out of prison on licence from a term he had been serving for a previous 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 was handed a two year prison sentence for the burglary and was also ordered 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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