A CAREER criminal who began breaking into houses at just 12 years of age has been jailed for eight years for two night-time burglaries.

One of Stanislav Malek's victims was a disabled woman who had just celebrated her 92nd birthday and was left shaking after being told she had been targeted.

She told police: “I have not been able to sleep thinking that he had been in my home while I was asleep and what could have happened to me if he had disturbed me at my age.

“I don’t think I would have been much longer for this world.”

Southampton Crown Court heard the elderly pensioner, who lives in Locks Heath, had forgotten to lock her conservatory door when she went to bed at 2.30am after the celebration.

Prosecutor Duncan Milne said a few hours later she was contacted by her bank to say her bank cards had been used three times, once in Park Gate and twice in Southampton, to withdraw £1,000.

She then discovered her purse, which had also contained about £300, was missing.

A month later, Malek travelled from Southampton to Farnborough where he broke into a house while the two occupants were also asleep.

Malek was caught after leaving two cigarette butts outside a window through which he had gained entry. The DNA matched his profile.

Malek, a 58-year-old warehouse worker, of Adey Close, Sholing, Southampton, admitted two counts of burglary and six of fraud.

Judge Gary Burrell QC, who had been told that Malek had 29 previous convictions for 91 offences, commented: “He is a career criminal.”

Justin Hugheston-Roberts, defending, said: “There is a saying that you cannot teach a dog new tricks but perhaps you can teach him some realisation that he will be drawing his pension when he has finished the inevitable prison sentence.

“He didn’t know the lady was in her 90s and had been celebrating her birthday. He accepts the burglary was unacceptable, to her, society and the law.”