DUMBEST THIEF IN BRITAIN; Owner finds burglar dangling from window.

Byline: By Martin Fricker

AND the award for Britain's worst burglar goes to... this brainless crook.

Dumb criminal John Pearce was left high and dry after he tried to break into a terraced house.

Home owner Paul Ives discovered the thief dangling upside down from a window by his shoelaces.

Pearce, 32, had got his foot caught after trying to squeeze through the upper part of a downstairs window.

As he struggled, he managed to break the lower part of the window but he could not free his foot and was stuck upside down.

And he was left like that for an hour before shocked Paul returned home and discovered him.

Pearce had a hammer in his hand - but amazingly tried to deny he had been breaking in.

Instead, he claimed he had spotted someone else trying to raid the house and had decided to stop him.

Paul, 44, from Dartford, Kent, said: "The man must be the world's dumbest thief.

"He was hanging upside down. His body was inside the house and he was stuck in the window with his foot outside.

"The more he struggled, the more he got jammed. He was screaming to get him down and we were all saying, 'I don't think so'."

Neighbours taunted red-faced Pearce and took photographs before police and paramedics arrived to free him.

One onlooker said: "All the neighbours gathered round and even the police were laughing at him. It took a while for the paramedics to get him down.

"He was writhing about and cutting himself on the shards of glass."

Paul's girlfriend Angela Gloyn, 32, said: "Afterwards, we had a right giggle about it."

Pearce appeared before magistrates in Dartford and admitted a charge of burglary with intent to steal. He will be sentenced on September 5.

A dozy burglar who fell asleep in a child's bed inside the house he had broken into was yesterday jailed for two years.

Tommy Gill was branded the "Goldilocks" burglar by police after he was found snoring in the bed surrounded by his hoard of stolen goods.

At Portsmouth Crown Court, Gill, 27, admitted breaking into the house in Fratton, Hampshire.

'He was screaming to get him down. We said, 'I don't think so"

CAPTION(S):

CROOK ON A HOOK: Pearce dangles upside down at the broken window as neighbours gather round NICOLA DANIELS