A burglar known around Brighton’s pubs and bars for stealing from staff rooms and tip jars has been jailed for 32 months after burgling a flat by mistake.
At the age of 51, Simon Hornby has racked up 69 convictions for 109 offences – mostly shoplifting and burglaries of commercial premises to feed his drug habit.
Today, he was sent to prison for his third burglary of someone’s home, having triggered the third strike rule and an automatic stretch inside.
Hornby, of Marine Parade, Eastbourne, kicked in the door of the flat above the Bat and Ball pub in Ditchling Road on the evening of Friday 21 February last year, thinking it was a staff room.
He was caught in the act by the landlady, and claimed he had been trying to find the toilet before hurling abuse at her partner and leaving.
The court heard that just half an hour later, he posed as security guard and fooled a bartender at Shuffle in nearby York Place to give him the door code to the staffroom.
There, while chatting to another member of staff, he spent almost half an hour studying CCTV angles and going through lockers, taking another bartender’s bank cards.
Within minutes of leaving, the bartender was getting alerts on his mobile phone telling him they were being used in nearby pubs and bars.
The court heard that the previous September, he had also stolen £45 in cash from Wafflemeister, when he entered the private staff room and went through employee Mary Marino’s belongings.
And on Saturday 22 May this year, he was caught with five wraps of heroin and crack cocaine, which he tried to hide from police by putting them in his mouth.
Prosecuting yesterday at Hove Crown Court, Michael Hillman said: “This sort of offending is this particular defendant’s modus operandi.
“The majority of his offences are shoplifting and non-dwelling, walk-in style burglaries.”
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Bat and Ball landlady Lucy Manville said: “I feel uneasy and I’m constantly making sure the doors and windows are locked.
“I don’t trust people in the pub any more and people walking past.”
She said that she had stopped having young relatives round to stay, with her goddaughter saying she didn’t feel safe in case the bad man comes back.
And she has now put four locks on the door to the flat, as well as a new lock on the pub.
When he was arrested for the Bat and Ball burglary, he was adamant it hadn’t been him, telling police “he doesn’t do dwellings”.
However, the court also heard that he is so well known around Brighton and Hove that he was easily identified from CCTV footage.
Defending, Brian Shaw said: “He hasn’t had a prison sentence for about eight or nine years now. He understands. He said to me today, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
“It’s obvious what happened – his usual modus operandi let him down because he didn’t appreciate until it was too late that this was a private area rather than a staff area.
“He has been very careful not to do dwellings, one reason being the predicament he finds himself in now.”
The third strike rule specifies a minimum sentence of three years, with only a 20 per cent reduction available for a guilty plea. Hornby’s previous dwelling burglary convictions date from 2011 and 2016.
Hornby only pleaded guilty to the Bat and Ball burglary on Wednesday 28 July, the day his trial was due to start at Hove Crown Court, entitling him to only a 10 per cent reduction in sentence.
He was given a two-year prison sentence in October last year, suspended for a year – but these latest convictions don’t trigger the suspension as the offences predate the October conviction.
Sentencing, Recorder Sarah Elliott said: “I’m about to send you back into prison.
“It’s disappointing for me because you have actually got a positive report from probation and I have read what your partner says about you and what you have to say about wanting to move on. At 51, you are really too old for this nonsense.
“The sentence you will receive is 32 months. I should put that up to reflect the other offences, but I’m not going to because in my judgment that’s a sufficiently lengthy custodial term to reflect all of these offences.”
