Burglar broke into home and stole everything including the kitchen sink

A burglar broke into a house in Coventry and stripped it of everything including the kitchen sink. Sebastian Ptasinski also took a new boiler, radiators, pipework, new carpets and even the cooker from a home in Wyken. The house was being renovated by the landlord after a tenant moved out.

Despite his fingerprints and empty cans of Zubr, a Polish beer, being found inside, Ptasinski had initially pleaded not guilty. But on the day of his trial at Warwick Crown Court, Ptasinski, 30, of Wyken, changed his pleas to guilty. The offence involved him targeting a neighbouring house which had been let to a tenant who had moved out in December last year. The owner spent £3,000 on carrying out improvements, including installing a new boiler, pipework and radiators, and fitting new carpets.



But the property remained unoccupied, and when the owner visited on April 10 he discovered that it had been burgled and ‘vandalised.’ The new boiler, piping and radiators had been stolen, together with the carpets, lights and electrical switches, cooker - and even the kitchen sink and taps. Ptasinski sold a lot of the property to a scrap dealer, and he was identified as the seller after being traced through his car which had been captured by a CCTV camera at the scrap yard.

As well as the empty beer cans with his DNA on it, Ptasinski had also left behind a bailiff’s notice with his name and address on it. Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on Ptasinski, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano granted him bail with a condition of an electronically-monitored curfew. But she warned him: “Please be under no illusions; this is likely to be a sentence of custody which is measured in years rather than months.”