Callous cold caller burgled home of 81-year-old in Ampleforth, near Malton

Dylan Bandeira, 21, was one of three men who were cold-calling homes in Ampleforth, the quaint North York Moors village where the named elderly victim was tending his garden, York Crown Court heard.

Bandeira, carrying “random” items for sale in a hold-all, turned up at the victim’s doorstep and started hawking his wares to the pensioner who thought them over-priced, said prosecutor Aqsa Hussain.

Not to be deterred, Bandeira said he had just been released from prison and was about to join the army, intending to get the elderly man to open his purse strings.

The ruse worked and the kind-hearted pensioner, who had already been visited by one of Bandeira’s cohorts earlier in the day, “took pity on him”, agreeing to buy an “over-priced tea towel” for £30.

He then allowed Bandeira, a drug user, to follow him into his bungalow while he got his money to pay for the item.

The victim, who lived alone in Manor Farm, went into his kitchen to get his wallet and count his money, but as soon as his back was turned Bandeira looked around rooms in the bungalow before stealing a watch from a box on top of a cabinet in the living room.

He paid for the ridiculously over-priced tea towel and Bandeira “rather strangely” asked him for the time, ostensibly to see whether the victim had realised he had stolen the watch.

Bandeira then the property with the £69 watch hidden in his hold-all. It was only when he left that the victim noticed the timepiece had disappeared.

The victim’s elderly neighbour told him that he too had had items stolen from his house earlier in the day.

Other neighbours suspected that they too had had money stolen from their homes by the three men.

Police were alerted and stopped the three men, including Bandeira, “moments later” in the village.

The victim identified him and was able to recover his watch which had been seized from Bandeira.

Ms Hussain said that another named elderly man in Ampleforth had been visited by a cold caller on the same day and had about £100 stolen from his home.

She said it couldn’t be established whether it was Bandeira or one of the other two men who had stolen from the 92-year-old, but they had used the same tactic, namely offering to sell over-priced tea towels and “random items”.

“This seems to be something rife in the community,” she added.

“Police noted three individual males in the village who had been doing this cold calling - door-to-door selling.”

Bandeira, of Albourne Green, Middlesbrough, was ultimately charged with burglary but not until December last year - three months after the offence was committed on September 2.

The offence was in breach of an existing court order imposed in August 2022 for assaulting an emergency worker.

Bandeira appeared for sentence today knowing that jail was a distinct possibility given his previous convictions for theft.

The court heard he had built up a drug debt through his use of “Diazepam or cocaine”.

Defence barrister Calum McNicholas said Bandeira was only lightly convicted and that his previous shoplifting offences occurred when he was a youth.

Judge Simon Hickey described the burglary as a “sneak, mean offence” and told Bandeira he had preyed on a “trusting gentleman” who “wanted to help you” by buying the vastly overpriced item.

He said, however, that he could “just” suspend the inevitable jail sentence because of Bandeira’s early guilty plea and the fact he had a job lined up and had not committed any further offences since his arrest.

The 16-month prison sentence was suspended for two years. Bandeira was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and complete a 20-day rehabilitation course.