by Paul Hooper

A Margate woman “roped in” a female friend to break into the home of an ex-lover... through a dog flap!

Sarah Ripley – and pal Jade Anderton – crawled through the hole and into the house in Upper Dane Road Margate late at night and stole high-price items.

But the two didn’t realise they had been caught on CCTV and Ripley’s ex-lover Derek Holt identified her as one of the two raiders, Canterbury Crown Court heard.

Her former lover Derek Holt later told police that a Rolex watch, a laptop, a camera and cigarettes were taken during the raid – although both women deny taking the £900 watch.

Pregnant Ripley, 21, of Fort Crescent, Margate, didn’t appear for sentence – claiming she was too ill to come to court. Her hearing was adjourned until later in the month.

Ripley and Anderton, 23, of The Parade, Margate both admitted burglary at an earlier hearing.

Prosecutor Jim Harvey told Canterbury Crown Court: “Some six months prior to the break in, the victim Mr Holt had been very briefly in a relationship with Ripley.”

He said that in June this year he had gone out at 8pm leaving his home secure.

“He explained that he has a dog flap (similar to that pictured above) attached to the rear of the kitchen door which had a locking facility.

“At 10am the following day a neighbour called him to say his front door was wide open. He looked around the property and discovered a number of items had been taken.”

Mr Harvey added that the CCTV footage revealed that at 1.40am Ripley had come to the house and showed the women knocking on the front door and then kicking in the dog flap before crawling through and taking various items.

Mother-of-two Anderton would claim that her friend alleged she had left property at the home of the ex-lover and had stolen 200 cigarettes because “she was extremely drunk at the time”.

She later told police that “now she was sober she felt very guilty about what she had done” – but not before she had given away the cigarettes she hadn’t smoked!

Simon Taylor, defending, said: “When she was inebriated she made a foolish and disastrous decision to enter the property and then stole the cigarettes.”

Judge Simon James gave her an eight month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered her to do 150 hours of unpaid work.

He told her: “People have a right to expect their homes are safe and burglary is as much a crime against the person as against property. The feeling of violation lasts a long time.

“In my judgement you were roped in to this enterprise by your co-defendant. However, you became a willing participant and knew full well these premises belonged to your friend’s former partner.

“You could have little legitimate argument if I sent you straight to jail and indeed many hard working and honest people consider anything other than an immediate jail sentence for burglary is unacceptable.”

He said that this was Anderton’s first offence and she needed help to deal with an alcohol issue, adding: “But this should not be seen by you that I do not think that dwelling house burglaries are serious offences. I do.”