A burglar caught on camera taking everything including the kitchen sink from a police “capture house” in Bradford has been jailed for 12 months for stripping lead from the roof of a church and school.

Daniel Patchett did £8,000 of damage to Eastburn Methodist Church at Eastburn, near Keighley, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Worshippers arrived at the church on Sunday, September 8, to find the building leaking after lead had been plundered from the roof and from around the windows.

Patchett, formerly of Sheldrake Avenue, Lower Grange, Bradford, was traced after he left his fingerprints on a drainpipe at the church, prosecutor Jonathan Sharp said.

He was not apprehended until October 13 when he was caught red-handed stealing lead from the roof of Steeton Primary School.

He attacked the building after midnight, avoiding the anti-vandal paint and doing £2,500 damage, Mr Sharp told the court.

Patchett pleaded guilty to two offences of theft at an earlier court hearing.

His barrister, Shufqat Khan, said Patchett was homeless at the time and in desperate need of basic living requirements. He had led a transitory and chaotic lifestyle, surviving hand to mouth.

He now had a settled address and was actively seeking employment.

Judge John Potter said they were “highly anti-social” offences undermining the community as a whole and directly affecting both worshippers and schoolchildren.

In November last year, Patchett was locked up for eight months for burgling two unoccupied houses in Bradford.

He was caught on hidden cameras breaking into the “capture house”, which had been rigged with surveillance cameras by police, and had been seen manhandling a sink unit from the property, and trying to remove a boiler.