Burglar’s disabled daughter helps him get more lenient prison sentence

Judge Paul Ramsey QC told her “incorrigible offender” father James Edward Bonner that her evidence had saved him “from what would have been a more lengthy sentence”.

Bonner from Glengoland Gardens, Dunmurry, was jailed for a total of seven-and-a-half months after pleading guilty to a £25,000 burglary, aggravated vehicle taking, causing damage to the Toyota Yaris and handling stolen goods, all on September 12, 2017.

The Belfast Crown Court judge said the 45-year-old, with 230 previous convictions dating back to the mid-1980s, “seems to have been an incorrigible offender over the decades”.

However, he added, it was “also right to say there has been a drop off in his offending ... but no doubt this series of offences was a return to his bad old ways”.

Earlier prosecution lawyer Robin Steer revealed that Bonner was linked to the £25,000 burglary, when over 300 items of clothing were taken from a men’s outfitters on Belfast’s Lisburn Road, by a partial DNA profile taken from the handle of a hammer left behind in the shop.

The following day police also recovered a damaged stolen Toyota Yaris in north Belfast. Mr Steer said that inside was a tie from the burglary and a five kilo bag of rice taken during a break-in at a cafe next door to the men’s outfitters. They also recovered a balaclava “and examination by forensic science revealed the defendant’s DNA profile”.

Defence barrister Barry Gibson had earlier called Bonner’s profoundly disabled daughter to tell how he helps her in her daily life.