A burglar will now spend years behind bars after his thieving spree – and officers – caught up with him.
Christos Iona broke into the same Beeston-based student accommodation no less than five separate times.
Iona repeatedly invited himself inside Graduation House, High Road, before going into different apartments to steal.
The thief then walked of out the building carrying the items – which included TVs from four flats and an arcade machine.
Each of the break-ins happened between 30 November and 6 December, with Iona also embarking on a shoplifting spree as well.
Four shops – in Beeston, Stapleford, Wollaton and Netherfield – were targeted during seven thefts throughout last November and December.
He didn’t get away with his stealing exploits though, after tenacious detectives and neighbourhood officers built a watertight case against him.
Having managed to identify Iona from available CCTV and link him to the offences, officers managed to catch Iona within days of his final theft.
Despite Iona being of no fixed address, the Chilwell Neighbourhood Policing team managed to track him down to a Beeston address on 18 December.
As well as successfully arresting the 27-year-old, police also found and recovered all four of the stolen TVs at other addresses linked to him.
Neighbourhood officers and detectives from the county burglary team then between them worked together to charge Iona with 13 offences.
These were five burglaries, seven shop thefts and one count of handling stolen goods.
The strength of the evidence the police teams gathered meant the thief pleaded guilty to all of them when he appeared in court on 20 December.
Iona, of no fixed address, returned to Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday (14 January), where he was sentenced to four years behind bars.
PC Samantha Gledhill, of the Chilwell Neighbourhood Policing team, said:
“Christos Iona clearly thought he was above the law when he decided to repeatedly burgle and shoplift.
“He was wrong, with the lengthy spell he’ll now spend in jail illustrating that fact and the consequences of doing what he did.
“We were really pleased to hear he received such a significant custodial sentence, with a lot of collaborative police work taking place to make this possible.
“The tenacity shown by our teams of detectives and neighbourhood officers helped bring his crime spree to an end and build a watertight case against him.”
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