Homeless drug addict jailed for break-ins at hospital

Richard Leaf was also barred from the whole hospital under an Anti Social Behaviour Order for five years, unless he has to go there for emergency treatment, after Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday the burglaries were the latest in a catalogue of offences on the premises.

Since January last year he has damaged doors and windows, stolen cash, broken into the breast screening clinic and the reproductive services centre and smashed a car window,

Leaf, 31, of no fixed address, admitted the two burglaries.

Robert Galley, prosecuting, told the court the security supervisor was contacted about 7am on December 4 about the first break in. He found a window in a fire door had been smashed with a fire extinguisher.

Other windows had been damaged, some offices ransacked with drawers opened and biscuits, sugar and coffee spilled on the floor.

As well as £60 in cash, two hand-held computer devices had been stolen, which fortunately were password protected. The data on them had already been downloaded to the central computer so no information was lost.

The intruder had also visited a sterile procedure room and left cigarettes on the floor.

In the second burglary a few weeks later four computers worth £2,000 were stolen but less damage caused.

Mr Galley said the security supervisor suspected Leaf because of previous trouble with him. He was found to have been an in-patient in the Newsome Centre on the site at the time of the second burglary.

Initially he denied responsibility for the first break-in but later admitted it, saying he had been mooching around, drinking and taking amphetamines.

Marlon Grossman for Leaf said he was “trapped in a cycle of homelessness, alcoholism, drug abuse and criminality”.

A psychiatrist had diagnosed no underlying mental illness but psychosis induced by his taking alcohol and amphetamines.

On the first occasion he had just been released from prison and was looking for somewhere to sleep. Fortunately no personal details were stolen. “Incubators, embryos, samples were not damaged, no irreplaceable harm was done.”

Jailing Leaf, Recorder Alistair MacDonald QC said they were serious offences in which gratuitous damage was caused and a valuable service to the community was disrupted since the sterile room he visited would have to be re-sterilised, while his previous actions aggravated his situation.