Rotherham burglars caught in act by husband and wife

Ahmed Mansourizdeh (23), of Spring Croft, Kimberworth Park, and Pourya Falahatpour (25), of Longfellow Drive, Herringthorpe, were both jailed for 18 months at Sheffield Crown Court in October after they pleaded guilty to burglary.

But judges at the Appeal Court in London cut their sentences to nine months each on the basis that the original jail terms were ‘manifestly excessive’.

The court heard that a man refueling his car heard the sound of breaking glass and, when he looked over a wall into the garden of a house in Denman Street, Rotherham, he saw one of the pair with his hand through the broken window.

The man and his wife had called the police from their car and then followed the would-be burglar as he drove off with another man.

The witnesses had given the police a running commentary as they followed the two criminals.

But the pair’s lawyer told the Appeal Court that  the sentencing judge had over-rated the seriousness of the offence, given that nothing had been taken.