A drunk burglar has been jailed after getting caught red-handed as he struggled to start his victim’s Mercedes – before telling police officers: ‘I love you’.
Anthony Bateman, 46, was filmed on police bodycam just minutes after he barged into an elderly woman’s home and stole her car keys.
The homeowner, in her 70s, dialled 999 after Bateman kicked down the front door of her home in Harborne, Birmingham at 4.10am on December 30 last year.
Anthony Bateman, 46, has been jailed for two years and five months after breaking into an elderly woman’s house in Harborne, Birmingham, in a botched car theft
A police patrol scrambled to the house on Metchley Lane and caught Bateman as he was attempting to start the black Mercedes C Class.
Police bodycam footage shows officers approach Bateman while shouting: ‘Get out the car now.’
A clearly intoxicated Bateman is heard saying: ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m coming brother.’
The officer tells Bateman: ‘You’ve obviously got in the car so you can get out of the car.’
As he is handcuffed and arrested on suspicion of burglary, he pleads with police: ‘Why you putting me in the car, lads?’
One officer tells a colleague: ‘I think he’s just kicked the door off, the keys are on the side and he’s helped himself.
‘But then he couldn’t figure out how to start the thing.’
Bizarrely, whilst under arrest, Bateman tells the officers: ‘I love you two’.
A baffled officer laughs and replies: ‘Ok thanks mate. He loves us.’
West Midlands Police officers, who arrived at the scene five minutes after the woman in her 70s whose house was burgled dialled 999, found a drunken Anthony Bateman struggling to start the Mercedes he was attempting to steal on December 30 last year
Bateman, of no fixed address, had only been released from prison on licence weeks before the botched theft.
He was jailed for two years and five months after he admitted burglary and attempted theft of a motor vehicle at Birmingham Crown Court on February 3.
Detective Constable Paul Jauncey, of West Midlands Police, said: ‘This was very distressing for the elderly victim who came across a stranger in her house.
The drunken burglar told officers who had apprehended him: ‘I love you’ . He was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court on February 3
‘She managed to call us and officers arrived within minutes to find Bateman in the car with the engine running.
‘They not only managed to prevent the car being stolen but also him driving while under the influence and putting others at risk.
‘We know the impact of vehicle crime on our communities and we’re working hard as a force to crackdown on this and arrest offenders.’
West Midlands Police arrested more than 2,300 suspected car thieves and recovered over 1,000 stolen vehicles last year.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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