A pair of crooks have been jailed for trying to break into a family’s home that they had mistaken for a drug dealer’s house.
Harbans Sandhu, 43, and Francyne Newell, 34, pleaded guilty to attempted burglary on the second day of a trial at Leeds Crown Court.
A woman and her 11-year-old daughter woke up at around 3am on February 25 this year to the sound of the door being ‘kicked and hammered’.
Terrified, they barricaded themselves into a bedroom and called the police who luckily arrived on the scene within five minutes or less, causing the defendants to flee.
The incident took place on Wasp Nest Road in Fartown at around 3am on February 25 this year.
The court previously heard how weapons were found at the scene and the duo were facing charges for having bladed articles, but the prosecution dropped these charges following the guilty plea.
Newell told police that they were in the area visiting a drug dealer and the prosecution alleged that they had set out to steal from the drug dealer.
Richard Walters, prosecuting, also said that Sandhu was overheard at the scene saying that it was not even the drug dealer’s house.
Sandhu’s barrister Anastasis Tassou said his client recently had his hand ‘severed’ in an attack and had to attend hospital to have the bleeding treated during the trial. He was sentenced in his absence.
Sandhu, of Wakefield Road, Waterloo, was sentenced to three years and eight months’ imprisonment.
Newell, of Shepherds Grove, Deighton, was sentenced to two years and nine months’ imprisonment.
