TWO burglars broke into a house while the homeowner was sleeping upstairs and stole his bank card before using it to buy McDonald’s food.

Cole Kennedy and Derek Warburton burgled a property in Stockton Heath and pinched a car parked outside before going on a spending spree using the stolen card.

On Thursday, October 17, the pair were locked up by a judge at Chester Crown Court.

Warburton, from Orford, and drug dealer Kennedy targeted a house on Gaskell Street in the early hours of Sunday, October 14 2018.

After stealing the occupier’s car and a quantity of cash as he slept, the pair spent around £70 on his bank card later that morning at Shell garages and a McDonald’s drive-through in the Manchester area.

The vehicle was found burnt out in the Crumpsall area a week later.

CCTV footage from the fast food restaurant and mobile phone analysis then linked the pair to the burglary and fraudulent transactions.

While investigations continued and the pair had been released on bail, 20-year-old Kennedy was seen in a black BMW parked on Whitworth Close in Birchwood on the afternoon of Thursday, August 1.

Believing the car to be linked with drug dealing in the Warrington area, officers searched the car – finding £1,140 worth of crack cocaine and heroin, a lock knife, £526 in cash and mobile phones.

Twenty-eight-year-old Warburton, of Scott Street, admitted burglary and fraud and was jailed for two years and 10 months.

Kennedy was handed five years and four months behind bars after admitting burglary, fraud, possession of crack cocaine and heroin with intent to supply and possession of a bladed article in a public place.

Detective sergeant Tom Hall said: “I would like to thank fellow detective Alison McLoughlin and all the officers involved in these cases for their hard work in securing the convictions.

“Kennedy and Warburton are both persistent offenders, and I am delighted that they have now been sentenced for their crimes in Warrington.

“With the strength of the evidence we had against them, they had no choice but to plead guilty to the offences they have been sentenced for.

“The pair burgled a house whilst the occupier was home sleeping, and after stealing his car they fraudulently used his bank card on three occasions.

“Thankfully, we were able to identify them from CCTV footage and we were also able to catch Kennedy in possession of a large quantity of class A drugs as he was in the process of selling them in Warrington as part of a county lines drug dealing gang.

“These gangs and their illegal drugs blight our towns and cities, and cause untold damage to the lives of both people who get addicted to the drugs and the wider community who suffer from the resulting crime.

“Removing drug dealers and burglars from our streets is a constant goal, and I hope the custodial sentences that Kennedy and Warburton have received deters others from committing such crimes.

“I also hope that the pair spend their time behind bars reflecting on the lives they have been leading and change their ways – they are both still young men, particularly Kennedy at only 20.”