Burglar scattered funeral ashes in drugged raid on widow's flat

A burglar who broke into an elderly woman's home and threw her husband's ashes around while she was seriously ill in hospital, moved into the same street days later.

Drug user Richard Ansell, 19, left a trail of destruction when he ransacked the home of 76-year-old Kathleen Staves on Adelaide Street in Hull, stealing all her jewellery, including her late husband's wedding ring.

He also ground chocolates into her carpet and smashed precious 100-year-old wine glasses at her flat in Hull, while she was being treated in hospital.

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In a final cruel move, a short time later he moved in directly opposite the house he had ransacked with his girlfriend Naomi Lovatt and her mother Lisa Lovatt, a notorious troublemaker who was one of the first mothers in the UK to receive an anti-social behaviour order six years ago.

Because the tenancy was in her name, Ansell was able to live across the road until his fingerprints were found on Mrs Staves's stolen property and he was arrested.

Jailing him for five years at Hull Crown Court, Judge Roger Thorn QC said: "This burglary was as serious as it gets.

"You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

"You will have plenty of time to contemplate what you have done and the appalling sadness and tragic grief you have caused to your victims."

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Mrs Staves, whose flat was not insured, is now in a nursing home after spending four months in hospital.

Her devastated daughter Paula George, who discovered the wreckage at the house on March 15, has not told her mother the full details for fear of the impact it will have on her fragile health.

In a statement read to the court, she said: "I have still not been able to tell her that, since that night, the defendant moved across the road.

"I have finally told her about the burglary and she is heartbroken. I have still not been able to tell her about just how malicious this was.

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"Not only did he steal from an ill pensioner with no insurance and little money, he emotionally raped the family at the worst possible time.

"His actions are only now just starting to take their final toll on the real victim in all of this, my mother."

Detective Constable John Lavin, from Humberside Police, said: "This was an outrageous crime.

"The victim's property was desecrated and went beyond a simple theft."

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Ansell admitted burglary, as well as three charges of criminal damage and two counts of stealing from a car, all relating to offences committed after the burglary.

He told probation officers he was "out of his head on drugs" at the time of the raid.

A Hull Council spokesperson said: "The council has no power over or contract with this person as he himself has never applied for or held a Hull City Council tenancy, or been known to the council in any capacity."

The Lovatts have since been evicted from their flat opposite, which is now boarded up. Lisa Lovatt has a string of convictions for criminal damage and drunken behaviour and was given her first Asbo in 2004 after singing Abba hits so loudly that residents complained.

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