A TEENAGE housebreaker who stole a treasured military cap badge and medals from a woman’s home has been locked-up for almost three years.

Neeve Conley, 18, burgled the house in Prospect Mount, Keighley, while subject to a suspended sentence order for attacking a young homeless man, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Louise Pryke said that Conley, of Aire View House, Broughton Road, Skipton, and an accomplice sneaked into the property on April 7 while the householder was in the garden. They stole jewellery, two medals and a treasured Royal Mechanical Engineers cap badge.

The stolen valuables were recovered from a stream but everything was ruined, leaving the woman angry and distressed.

Conley admitted the burglary and was sentenced on a video link to HMP Durham and using the Skype service.

The court heard he was a “third striker” subject to a three-year minimum term, minus credit for his guilty plea.

Conley also pleaded guilty to interfering with a camper van in Thompson Lane, Baildon, on February 14 and assaulting the two police officers who arrested him.

Mrs Pryke said he broke into the van by ripping off a window causing £500 worth of damage. He didn’t steal anything from it but the vehicle was used to take cancer patients out for the day in memory of the owner’s mother and sister who had died from the disease. She was left shocked and upset, the court heard.

Conley kneed one police officer and repeatedly kicked out at another at Nelson Street Police Headquarters in Bradford.

He also admitted two charges of possession of cannabis in February and breaching an eight-month suspended sentence order imposed at Bradford Crown Court in December for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Mrs Pryke said he was one of a group who attacked a young homeless man.

Conley’s solicitor advocate, Saf Salam, said he was still very young and had spent two months in custody awaiting sentence.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, told Conley he didn’t want him to throw his life away.

He sentenced him to three years in a young offender institution for the burglary, with a third off for his guilty plea, making 876 days.

Judge Durham Hall also activated six months of the suspended sentence to run consecutively.

He sentenced Conley to three months to run concurrently for assaulting the police officers and to no separate penalty for the vehicle interference.