Amazing, although hardly surprising these days, story about an 18 year old youth who has finally been sentenced to jail after carrying out nearly 700 burglaries and robberies.
Bradley Wenham, who started his criminal career at the age of 12 years, was a walking one-man crimewave, robbing everywhere from homes to churches and even stealing a number of high-end cars, the total value being in the region of £1 million. Last year, Wenham appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court where he admitted to twenty burglaries but asked for another 645 to be taken into account.
He already had convictions for 26 other offences under his belt bringing the total to 691 crimes.
Despite this, Judge Christopher Ball QC decided to give him a ‘second chance’ because he believed he needed a fresh start!
Wenham was relocated to Chelmsford after Essex Police pledged to provide free rented accommodation for him and visit him twice a week.
Wernham moved into the flat with his girlfriend Sophie Hatfield and was ordered to do a staggering 150 hours of community service and obey a draconian six-month overnight curfew order from 11pm to 6am.
Finally, though, he has been remanded in custody after his ‘fresh start’ involved an attempted burglary on January 5th 2010. I suppose he did start afresh, technically, as it was a different area!
There are harsher sentences handed out for selling goldfish or dropping crumbs.