A prolific thief who repeatedly burgled student accommodation will start the new year behind bars.
Christos Iona targeted the same Beeston-based student apartments on five separate occasions during his crime spree.
Each of the break-ins at Graduation House, High Road, happened between 30 November and 6 December.
Iona helped himself to TVs from four of the flats during his spree, while also stealing a high-value arcade machine from the common room.
His stealing exploits weren’t just limited to those five burglaries, however, with Iona targeting shops around that same period too.
On seven occasions, the shoplifter helped himself to meat products, clothing, alcohol and other items before walking out of the stores without paying.
Four shops – from Beeston, Stapleford, Wollaton and Netherfield – had items stolen by Iona, between 10 November and 14 December.
Officers from the Chilwell Neighbourhood policing team managed to catch up with the thief within a few days of that final offence though.
Having looked through the available CCTV footage, police identified Iona as a suspect.
Despite Iona being of no fixed address, officers managed to use police intelligence to track him down to a Beeston address, where he was detained on 18 December.
As well as successfully arresting the 27-year-old, police also found and recovered three of the stolen TVs at another address linked to him.
Neighbourhood officers and detectives from the county burglary team then between them worked together to charge Iona with 13 offences.
The strength of the evidence they’d gathered meant the thief pleaded guilty to each of them when he appeared in court on Saturday (20 December).
Iona, of no fixed address, now faces a wait to the New Year, after being remanded into custody until 10 January.
That’s when he’ll appear at Nottingham Crown Court to be sentenced for five counts of burglary, seven shop thefts and one count of handling stolen goods.
PC Samantha Gledhill, of the Chilwell Neighbourhood Policing team, said:
“Our neighbourhood officers and burglary team detectives worked together to great effect to build a strong case against Iona.
“It was really pleasing then to see this tenacity pay off, with all that evidence prompting him to plead guilty to 13 separate offences in total.
“He was responsible for burgling the same student accommodation building no less than five separate times.
“Burglary is a horribly invasive crime that can leave people feeling uneasy about where they live – a fact that would’ve been doubly true here, with young students being targeted.
“When you add his shoplifting spree too, it’s clear Iona has no regard for the law, so it’s good to know he’ll spend the rest of the Christmas period behind bars and be sentenced in the new year.”
