A woman caught by a child while burgling a Margate home has been jailed for 29 months.

Homeless Ayshe De Boer, 22, told the child she was looking for socks while raiding the house in Clarendon Road on May 7.

Residents woke up to find a handbag and its contents including cash and bank cards were missing.

The child reported he had seen a burglar in the house during the night who had climbed through a window in the downstairs bathroom.

A search of the house found further items including cash and trainers missing.

Through forensic testing, fingerprints found on the top edge of the bathroom door were traced back to De Boer.

"She has shown no consideration for the effect of her actions on her victims and I hope her time behind bars will make her re-assess her attitude..." - Det Con Kentra Gamble

On the same day a guest at a hotel in Edgar Road, Margate, locked his room and left for the day. When he returned he noticed items including computer tablets, laptops and aftershave were missing.

CCTV showed De Boer stealing the keys for that room from behind the reception desk on May 6.

Some of the stolen items were later found inside a discarded mattress in Northdown Road and CCTV captured De Boer walking towards it on the night of the burglaries.

When De Boer was arrested she was wearing the stolen trainers and a search revealed she was in possession of Class A drugs.

During police interviews De Boer admitted she used as much as £400 worth of heroin and crack cocaine daily but refused to explain how she funded the habit.

She declined to comment on the items stolen from the house in Clarendon Road, but said she had tried to sell the laptops taken from the hotel room.

She has been sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court for two counts of burglary, one of theft and two of possession of Class A drugs.

Detective Constable Kentra Gamble said: “De Boer was brazen in her approach to burglary, trying to bluff her way past children, and then wearing her ill-gotten gains or selling them on.

“She has shown no consideration for the effect of her actions on her victims and I hope her time behind bars will make her re-assess her attitude.

“There is help for people addicted to drugs or alcohol and Kent Police works in partnership with treatment providers to help people that find themselves in a difficult position to stop them offending in the first place.”