Overweight burglar foiled because he was too big to fit through window
An overweight criminal who was caught trying to burgle a garage tried to deny the allegation - claiming he was too big to get through a window.
Simon Edwards, 54, was stopped with a ladder wearing gloves at 4am outside an MOT centre in Rugby, Warks.
But he told police who found him outside the Car4U branch in April 2019 that he was looking for a discarded tractor tyre to help him exercise.
Edwards, from Warwickshire, denied attempted burglary at Warwick Crown Court but a jury took just 43 minutes to find him guilty last April.
He appealed against his conviction and the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial but he was found guilty for a second time on Thursday.
Prosecutor Alex Pritchard-Jones said: “At 4.16 in the morning an alarm was activated at its premises, and the owner was alerted by the alarm company and made his way there.
“Meanwhile two police officers also headed to the scene to investigate why the alarm had gone off, and they saw Edwards near the premises.
“When he saw them, he tried to make off, but was stopped and arrested.
“We say he said: ‘I was trying to get into the place, and I failed.’”
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The court heard a window on the roof had been broken, and the owner said someone must have got inside to trigger the alarm.
The jury heard Edwards claimed he had driven to the area and parked in the nearby Jewson’s car park to look for a tractor tyre to use to help get himself fit.
He said he was searching wasteland, believing that if he took a tyre from there he would not be committing any offence.
Nick Devine, defending, said: “The officer in the case saw the window, and he saw Mr Edwards.
“He confessed that in his view Simon Edwards could not have got through that window because of his size and physique.
“Even if he could have got through that window, given his condition, he’s supposed to have scaled the wall of the premises, got onto the roof and would then have had to heave the ladder onto the roof.
“He carts it over the roof, smashes the window, lowers the ladder and goes in and has a look round and climbs back out and pulls the ladder back up, carries it across the roof and lowers it down to climb down.
“He’s supposed to have done all that in his physical condition. That is utterly impossible.”
Edwards was bailed and ordered to return to court at a later date for sentencing.
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