A TEENAGER helped police catch a career burglar after spotting the prowler in a York back garden, a court heard.

The 16-year-old boy saw Paul Lennon Starr in his Dringhouses rear garden minutes before the 38-year-old broke into a nearby house and terrified its owner in April, Matthew Collins, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

When police responded to the victim’s 999 call, the teenager told them what he had seen and picked Starr out in a police ID procedure.

Starr had already been caught with jewellery and other items within hours of them being stolen from two other houses burgled in March. On one occasion, he was found hiding in his girlfriend’s bathroom.

He has 137 previous convictions, 48 for dishonesty including many for handling stolen goods, 10 for house burglary and others for commercial burglary.

Jailing him for three years, Judge Simon Hickey warned him: “If you come back before me, the sentence will be way above that.”

He said the victim of the April burglary had been so terrified, she no longer felt safe in her home, had difficulty sleeping and was suffering from increased depression and stress.

“All that is down to you,” he told Starr.

He commended the boy for his public spirited action and awarded him £200.

“He was only 16 but he had the presence of mind to say what he had seen in the garden,” he said.

Starr, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to burglary committed on April 2, and handling stolen jewellery and other items on March 15 and March 27.

Charges of burgling the west York houses from which the items were stolen were left on file, meaning they will appear on his record but are not convictions.

For Starr, Frances Pencheon said he had left the house he burgled in April immediately after he realised the householder was in.

He didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem but had reverted to his “previous lifestyle” earlier this year. His last house burglary conviction had been in 2011.

Starr had told her he planned to move away from York on his release.

Mr Collins said the victim of the April burglary had been upstairs when she heard Starr smash an annexe window and realised she was being burgled.

Going downstairs she found a muddy footprint left by Starr and rang her son, who told her to ring police. Minutes earlier the boy had waved to Starr in his back garden. Starr had immediately left, heading towards the victim’s house.