A WOMAN who posed as a Christmas Day meals-onwheels helper while burgling homes was last night starting a jail sentence as her victims revealed their heartache.

Drug addict Rachel Watt had been out of prison for only three days for a string of thefts when she carried out what a judge described as a “despicable”

series of sneak-in raids.

The 26-year-old carried a foil-covered Christmas dinner around to use as a prop if she was challenged by occupants while she broke into houses near her home in Havelock Street, Darlington.

Watt stole whatever she could grab if she was not disturbed, but claimed to be working for Age Concern and invented names of people she was looking for if she was confronted.

At the home of a police officer, she talked her way out of trouble by saying she had brought a meal for “Glynis”, but had got the wrong house, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Jailing her for ten months, Judge Brian Forster said: “On any view, this was despicable conduct.

“On Christmas Day, which for the majority of the community is a day of goodwill, you went out from your mother’s home with the intent to steal from the homes of anyone you could. You showed no goodwill to anyone.”

One householder said: “I am terrified that a stranger has been in the house, near the grandkids. This woman had the audacity to just walk into the house without any genuine reason on Christmas Day.”

After the case, another victim told The Northern Echo she knew nothing of the burglary bid until police turned up at her door after a neighbour reported an intruder.

She said: “We had people over for lunch and they had put their coats in the hall. The lady over the road raised the alarm after seeing her rifling through the coats.

“We were just quite shocked.

We had no idea she had been in the house. She’d just opened the front door and started looking through the coats. We only knew about it when the police came a few days later.

“I think it is really awful that someone would do that.

If one of us had caught her, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Watt sneaked into the homes in the afternoon and early evening of December 25 after her mother threw her out of a family gathering for being high on drink and drugs.

As she walked to her home in Havelock Street clutching the plated Christmas dinner, heroin-user Watt tried a number of doors in North Road and Thompson Street.

When she was challenged at one house by the occupier, she said she was from Age Concern and was bringing a meal for “Phyllis”, Richard Cowen, prosecuting, told the court.

Householders raised the alarm, and Watt was arrested on New Year’s Eve at her home where police found handbags, the stolen make-up and evidence of drugs use.

Kieran Rainey, mitigating, said Watt – a trainee soldier with the Royal Signals until an Achilles injury ended her career at 17 – was sorry.

“While these offences will rightly provoke a good deal of revulsion among the public, no one is more disgusted about her actions than Rachel Watt herself,” said Mr Rainey.

“Though she cannot remember much about Christmas Day because of the alcohol and drugs she consumed, she has read the evidence and is appalled.”

Watt, who has 27 previous convictions for dishonesty and has been given other non-custodial sentences and chances to get help to kick her drug habit, admitted six burglaries.