A window cleaner caught burgling a home by the disabled owner has been jailed for just under three years.

Deborah Jell discovered Josh Allen in her kitchen rifling through a drawer at her home in Laddingford in August last year.

After 21-year-old Allen fled, she discovered Fentanyl tablets she took for her illness were missing.

Allen, of Loose Road, Maidstone, denied burglary and was taken to the cells protesting loudly after he was jailed for two years and 10 months. Members of his family shouted foul abuse at the jury.

Jurors at Maidstone Crown Court had been told during the trial that Allen was jailed for 15 months last year for several burglaries and he was on licence when he committed the latest offence.

A judge told him: "There is higher culpability because I am absolutely satisfied you took a chance and knew who you were burgling and targeted the premises and, indeed, Mrs Jell."

The victim told the court she was unwell at home in Cleavesland on August 9 and drifting in and out of sleep on a sofa when she heard a knock at the front door around midday.

"Because I was so unwell, I didn't want to speak to anyone, so I ignored it," she said. "I couldn't remember if I left the door open or not. I went to the kitchen and that's when I saw the man there.

"I knew the person. He had one of my kitchen drawers open. I just shouted at him: 'What the hell do you think you are doing?' He slammed the drawer shut and ran out the back door. He jumped over my back wall."

Josh Allen was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court

Mrs Jell said she knew Allen as the grandson of a neighbour and because he had cleaned her windows. "He was due to come and clean my windows the next day," she said.

Judge Michael Carroll said of the victim: "She is a woman living on her own. I might be accused of being old fashioned. She is vulnerable, she was unwell, her mobility was restricted.

"This was not speculative, where somebody decides to chance their arm by knocking on doors. I think I am entitled to use some commonsense."