A TEENAGE house burglar was caught after leaving the crime scene in an Audi with a tracking device on it.

Javais Shaukat drove off in the borrowed vehicle when the housebreaking team was disturbed by the home owner, Bradford Crown Court heard on Friday.

Shaukat, 19, of Perth Avenue, Bolton Woods, Bradford, did not know the car was fitted with a tracker.

The householder took the number and he was arrested, prosecutor Louise Pryke said.

Shaukat pleaded guilty to burgling the house in Clifford Road, Ilkley, on December 18 last year.

He was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years, with 240 hours of unpaid work and a four month curfew order.

The court heard that the householder was walking back from the railway station at 8pm when he saw the lights being turned on and off in his home.

He knew family members were away and that he was being burgled.

He rang the police and took the number of the Audi as it drove off.

Three accomplices in hoods left the property and walked away.

The upstairs of the house had been ransacked, with jewellery boxes emptied.

Clothes were also left strewn around and a watch valued at £50 stolen.

Mrs Pryke said the Audi’s tracker revealed that the vehicle had made two earlier visits to the house that day while the burglars “cased the joint.”

Shaukat, who admitted being the driver, at first claimed he did not know where his three friends were going when they told him “they would be back in a few minutes.”

His barrister, Abdul Shakoor, said the teenager had been used by the others as a means of procuring a vehicle to commit burglary.

Letters from relatives spoke of Shaukat as “kind, caring and helpful.”

He was a hardworking young man who had never been in trouble with the police before.

Mr Shakoor said Shaukat no longer associated with the three other people who committed the burglary.

He did not go into the house and he bitterly regretted his role in the offence.

Judge David Hatton QC told Shaukat that breaking into people’s homes caused them acute trauma and stress as well as financial loss.

But the offending was out of character and he had, to some extent, been used by others.

Sparing him immediate custody, the judge said: “You are very fortunate.

“You have been very foolish.

“I would advise you not again to be foolish.”