A burglar who stole three pairs of panties from a woman's flat eighteen months ago was has been given an eight month jail sentence, suspended for two years, at the Crown Court in Derry.

The court was told on Monday that the knickers, which each cost £2 (€2.34), were found hanging from a tree eight months after they'd been stolen.

Ronan Gillen (28) from Cornshell Fields pleaded guilty to entering as a trespasser his then neighbour's flat at Waterloo Street near the city centre on September 20, 2015. He also admitted assaulting the woman by squeezing her and hugging her.

A prosecution barrister told Judge Philip Babington that Gillen entered the woman's flat five times uninvited by pushing open the front door. She constantly told him to leave but after he did so he kept coming back.

The woman initially felt uncomfortable with Gillen in her flat and then, when he returned for the fourth time, she became frightened and hid under her bed.

"On the fourth time he went into her bedroom, with the woman under her bed, and removed three items of underwear from her bedside drawer, three pairs of panties which she had just bought that day. She said she was terrified. She called her boyfriend who returned home from work and who found her in a very distressed state.

"The defendant came back again when the boyfriend was there. He was confronted by him and then left. The police were called and when they arrived at the flat they saw that the injured party was so upset that she became physically sick", the barrister said.

Eight months later the stolen panties were found hanging from a tree outside the flat then occupied by Gillen. They were found by a neighbour who was cutting branches off the tree, the barrister added.

Defence barrister Stephen Mooney said Gillen was absolutely remorseful and distressed at the upset he caused to the woman whom he knew as a neighbour.

"It was abundantly clear he was highly intoxicated at the time having consumed a colossal amount of lager over the previous two days.

"It is probably best described as creepy behaviour as against being predatory behaviour", he said.

"He is not given to a behaviour of this particular type. This was an unusual case of burglary. It is a drunken enterprise for which there is no logic. It is inevitable they (the panties) must have ended up the tree because of my client's actions", Mr. Mooney added.

Judge Babington said he noted from the pre-sentence report that Gillen had consumed between sixteen and eighteen cans of beer and that on the night in question he "was out for a cure".

He told Gillen "you were rightly drunk as one would say. There was no excuse for your behaviour. This must have been a very frightened thing to have occurred. This woman hid under her bed and you came back in and removed her underwear from her bedside drawer. Why oh why I do not know and I suggest that probably you do not know either.

"At the end of the day I think your brain was scrambled due to the enormous amount of alcohol you had taken over the previous twenty-four hours or so", he said.

Belfast Telegraph