A PAIR of ‘heartless criminals’ who broke into a house when a mother and daughter were at home have been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Burglars Vernon Davies and Philip Bright were disturbed by Benita and Naomi Giles in their home in Piddletrenthide before running off through the garden to their getaway car.

Davies had been out of prison for two weeks and Bright for three months when they raided the house on February 16 and stole a £200 camera and £25.

Both Davies, 43, of Lagdon Road, Poole, and Bright, 34, of Dorchester Road, Upton, admitted burglary.

Judge Harvey Clark said: “This was carried out with brazen affrontary and a total disregard for other people’s property.

“It was lunchtime that you walked into an annexe while the occupants were in another part of the house.

“You were intent on stealing anything valuable and it’s sad that good folk living in the Dorset countryside should feel frightened and violated by heartless criminals.

“You are professional house breakers who worked as a team in the past.”

Heather Shimmen, prosecuting at Bournemouth Crown Court, said Davies had a history of 22 burglaries and Bright 14 burglaries.

In 2008, they were both sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and released on licence – Davies in February this year and Bright last December.

Judge Clark: “It did not take either of you very long to revert to revert to your criminal activities.

“On your record both of you are a menace to the law-abiding people of this county.”

Bournemouth Crown Court was told that Bright’s footprint was found in the bedroom and the two men and their driver Charlotte Irene Wroe were stopped by the police.

Wroe, 37, of Dorchester Road, Upton, Poole, admitted a charge of assisting an offender.

She received a 12-month community order with a requirement to carry out 120 hours unpaid work in the community.

In a basis of plea, she said she knew the men had been ‘up to no good’ but did not realise they had set out to commit a burglary.