A ‘SELFISH and cruel’ drug addict who targeted an elderly man to steal his television set after committing a spate of shop thefts on bail has been jailed for more than three years.

Prolific thief Neil Wong, with 71 crimes on his record, mocked his vulnerable victim by offering to swap the plundered TV with another in the flat that had a smaller screen, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Wong, 42, of Bankfield Walk, Braithwaite, Keighley, was today (Thursday, December 15) sentenced to 38 months imprisonment for a total of nine offences.

Judge Jonathan Rose said the burglary was ‘an utterly dreadful offence’ in which Wong stole the pensioner’s £300 television set and £40 worth of scratch cards from next to his bed late at night.

The court heard that Wong and another man went to the man’s Keighley home on the evening of September 3 this year. The victim lives alone and is intermittently bedbound.

Wong, who was on bail and a community order, asked to borrow the TV and he said no.

He returned at 11pm and stole it along with the winning scratch cards, prosecutor Lauren Smith said.

Wong was also sentenced for a string of shoplifting offences in Keighley and using threatening behaviour with fear of violence to a store manager and his colleague.

Miss Smith said that the first shop theft took place on August 29 last year, just days after Wong was sentenced to a community order for shoplifting and battery.

He stole £60 worth of electric toothbrushes from Boots in Keighley and then went on to steal from stores in the town on September 10 and 11 last year.

On October 30, 2021, Wong entered Farm Foods in the Airedale Shopping Centre although he was banned from the store. He picked up two jars of coffee to steal but was challenged and detained by the manager who told him he was ‘sick of him coming in and helping himself.’

But Wong struggled, saying: ‘Not today. I’m not getting lifted.’ In the scuffle a Swiss Army Knife fell from his pocket.

Wong was pushed out of the shop by the manager because there were children present, Miss Smith said.

He stayed outside for some time shouting threats at the manager and his colleague.

“I’ll meet you after work and stab you up,” he said.

Shila Whitehead said in mitigation that Wong had a history of drug addiction. He was remorseful and sorry that he had targeted the elderly man.

He knew he was going to prison and he had already been remanded in HMP Doncaster for three weeks.

Judge Rose labelled Wong ‘a selfish and cruel man,’ who had committed ‘a mean and cruel offence’ of burglary.