A judge yesterday warned a burglar who broke into a Norfolk church vestry and stole electrical items that his actions led to more churches in the county being forced to lock their doors to the public.
Heroin addict Gaven Clarke, 23, was captured on CCTV when he, along with two others, forced the vestry door at Dereham's St Nicholas' Church.
The church has a policy to keep the church open during the day, but the door to the vestry was kept locked.
However, Clarke forced the door and stole £5, two microphones worth £50 each and two cassette players, Norwich Crown Court heard.
Clarke, of Sandy Lane, Dereham, admitted breaking into the church and also another house burglary in Dereham and asked for 19 other off-ences to be taken into consideration.
Jailing Clarke for two years, Judge Peter Jacobs told him it was break-ins like this which were forcing more churches to keep their doors locked during the day.
“People like you cause the doors to be locked,” said the judge.
“It has the effect of causing churches to become locked which means they are less accessible either as a place of worship or of historical interest.”
He said visitors who wanted to go to churches to pray or look around now often had to go on a search round to contact a keyholder so they could gain entry into a church.
“You forced your way in and stole from that church,” he said.
“The point about daylight burglary of churches is that it affects the deeply held religious views of people in our community.”
Ian James, mitigating, said: “He realises a custodial sentence is inevitable.”
He said Clarke had managed to get himself off drugs and wanted to wipe the slate clean. He said a number of items he had taken had been recovered.
Despite the break-in, St Nicholas' Church continues to keep its doors open to the public during the day. Its policy is to leave the church open during daylight hours but everything of value is locked away.
After the burglary, the Rev Richard Ames-Lewis commented: “We want the church to be available for people to use for the purpose for which it was built - for quiet prayer, reflection and to look at the history and architecture of the building.”
