Serial burglar said he was "lost" when a mum found him in her bedroom

The victim had been at home alone with her child when she went upstairs and came face to face with stranger Joseph Bell.

Newcastle Crown Court heard she bravely told him to get out and directed him downstairs but later noticed her purse, containing bank cards and picture of her mother, was missing.

She then received banking notifications on her phone about transactions on her card. Bell, 45, of Howdon Road, North Shields, North Tyneside, who has 115 convictions on his record including eight previous house raids, admitted burglary and two charges of fraud in relation to use of her bank card.

Prosecutor Omar Ahmad said: "As she went upstairs, she came face to face with a male standing in her bedroom, who was completely unknown to her.

"This, we now know, was the defendant. The defendant said he was lost. She told him to get out and directed him downstairs and out the front door and he left."

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In a victim statement, the mum said: "I never thought that a stranger would walk into my address off the street and although my door is always closed, I now feel I have to lock it at all times when inside as it has made me feel unsafe in my own home.

"This incident is an invasion of privacy and it makes you think what may have been had I not been able to usher him out of the address.

"I have a young daughter and it concerns me that someone has just walked into the house when she was inside. The implications of her seeing a stranger in the address upsets me."

Joe Culley, defending, said Bell is trying to change and added: "He is sorry for what happened here and what he did.

"There is a sense of shame about it."

Recorder Simon Kealey KC sentenced Bell to 876 days behind bars.