HOME alone with her two children a mother must have been “petrified” when she heard an intruder at 1.40am, a judge remarked.

“There can be no more frightening experience for a woman,” said Judge Huw Rees at Caernarfon crown court. “That’s how low drugs have brought you down.”

He was speaking to 29-year-old Brendon Williams of Plas Gwenllian, Bangor, who was jailed for 20 months after pleading guilty to

burglary and theft on November 3.

Brett Williamson, prosecuting, said the burglary at Coed y Castell, Bangor, took place within two weeks of Williams having been given a community order for burgling a non-dwelling.

The barrister described how the housewife at first thought a noise downstairs may have been made by family pets. She discovered an open window and dashed back upstairs to check her two children, phoned her husband who was working away, and dialed 999.

She realised that someone was still inside the house but when police arrived Williams was in the shrubbery, apparently under the influence of alcohol or drugs, with sealed needles in his pocket.

He was wearing a “tank-top” stolen from the house and also a jacket which he’d taken from an unlocked car earlier.

Mr Williamson said the defendant had 43 previous convictions for 68 offences.

Simon Killeen, defending, said it was accepted that he’d be going to jail. He’d had a troubled upbringing and his father had once be sent to jail for being with him when shoplifting.

There was a desperate need for him to stop taking heroin, said Mr Killeen.

Judge Huw Rees told Williams: “Drugs have been your downfall but you are still young enough to make a choice.”