AN innocent garden gnome became an unwitting accomplice in a burglary when a career criminal hurled it through a patio door of a Wirral house.

The intruder, Gerard Sanders, searched the premises in Prenton and fled with jewellery but fortunately it was all recovered as he was spotted running away and discarded the bag of loot.

The 34-year-old had craftily used the Merseyrail system to get to the house as he did to reach seven other up-market homes and while deliberately looking like a legitimate workman by wearing a hi-vis jacket and a beanie hat.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that it was the third time he has appeared for sentence as a "third strike burglar".

Jailing him for four years four months a judge warned him that unless he stops such offending he will receive longer and longer sentences.

Jewellery was taken by him in all but one of the break-ins and Judge Gary Woodhall pointed out that much of it had great sentimental value for the victims and they had all been left upset by the intrusion and ransacking of their homes.

"You say it is killing your mother but it has not dissuaded you from committing these offences," he added.

Sanders, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to the eight burglaries on Wirral and Sefton which happened between January 5 and February 6 this year during the day while the householders were out.

Iain Criddle, prosecuting, said that the stolen property ran into more than £15,000.

He also caused considerable damage during the raids, including smashing a Victorian cabinet which had great sentimental value.

He first struck at a property in Waterloo Road, Southport on January 5 and made off with jewellery and a mobile phone in a back pack.

He then hopped onto another train and went to another home in Merrilocks Road, Blundellsands where he stole £3,000 worth of jewellery, cash and a bicycle.

On January 24 he returned to North Merseyside and broke into a house in Dowhills Road, Blundellsands by smashing the patio door and stole a £7,000 Breitling watch and then got back on the train and went to Formby.

Mr Criddle said that he used a concrete planter to smash his way into a house in College Avenue where he again stole jewellery of great sentimental value and left a muddy trail across the carpet.

As in the other burglaries he made an "untidy search" of the premises during which he "smashed to pieces" a Victorian cabinet which was also of sentimental value.

He returned to Blundellsands on February 6 and raided a home in Warren Road where he stole an iPhone, an iPad and jewellery.

Mr Criddle said that Sanders had also raided three homes in Wirral in those two months after again using Merseyrail.

They were in Grosvenor Road and St Stephen’s Road, both in Prenton and Kilmalcolm Close, Oxton.

He made off with jewellery from each property and it was at the home in St Stephen's Road that he used a garden gnome to smash the patio window to get in, said Mr Criddle.

The householder, who like all the victims has been left badly affected, has told how she now "cleans obsessively to get rid of traces of the burglary.

"She feels unsafe and frightened that someone had been in the bedroom of her four-year-old daughter."

When arrested Sanders, who has committed 90 previous offences, made no comment.

The court heard that some of the stolen property has been recovered including a necklace that a his girlfriend was found to be wearing.

David Woods, defending, said Sanders had been released from prison last August and went to live with his mum in Utting Avenue, Liverpool, but she had to move in with her mother and there was no room for him.

He became homeless, developed a heroin addiction and returned to committing burglary offences.

He was now motivated to keep out of trouble because he knows it is upsetting his mum.