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A burglar broke into a house in Coventry – and stripped it of everything including the kitchen sink.

Sebastian Ptasinski also took a new boiler, radiators, pipework, new carpets and even the cooker from a home in Wyken.

The house was being done up by the landlord after a tenant moved out.

Despite his fingerprints, and empty cans of Polish beer, being found inside and at another burgled house, Ptasinski had initially pleaded not guilty to two break-ins.

But on the day of his trial at Warwick Crown Court, Ptasinski, 30, of Wappenbury Close, Wyken, changed his pleas to guilty.

The first offence involved him targeting a neighbouring house which had been let to a tenant who had moved out in December last year.

The owner spent £3,000 on carrying out improvements, including installing a new boiler, pipework and radiators, and fitting new carpets.

But the property remained unoccupied, and when the owner visited on April 10 he discovered that it had been burgled and ‘vandalised.’

The new boiler, piping and radiators had been stolen, together with the carpets, lights and electrical switches, cooker - and even the kitchen sink and taps.

Ptasinski sold a lot of the property to a scrap dealer, and he was identified as the seller after being traced through his car which had been captured by a CCTV camera at the scrap yard.

His fingerprints matched those found in the burgled house, where he had discarded an empty can of Zubr, a Polish beer.

Ptasinski’s DNA, together with another empty can of Zubr, were also found in a house in Milverton Road, Wood End, Coventry which had been broken into while the woman who lived there was away visiting relatives.

She had returned on April 23 to find her home had been ransacked and property including her computer and sewing machine, the television, a camera, two watches and clothes had been taken.

But as well as the empty beer can with his DNA on it, Ptasinski had also left behind a bailiff’s notice with his name and address on it. Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on Ptasinski, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano granted him bail with a condition of an electronically-monitored curfew.

But she warned him: “Please be under no illusions; this is likely to be a sentence of custody which is measured in years rather than months.”

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