A teenager who burgled the home of an elderly man who had recently lost his wife had moved her ashes as well as rifling through drawers, a judge has been told.

Finlay Bradshaw had left the box containing the ashes on a sofa and stolen the late wife’s 50-year-old engagement ring.

The occupier, who had recently left hospital after five weeks, had awoken “to a scene of partial devastation inside his home,” said Judge Huw Rees at Caernarfon crown court yesterday.

Bradshaw, 18, pleaded guilty to burglary at the house in the village of Rhydyclafdy, near Pwllheli, and an earlier night time burglary when he was 17 at Milton Keynes, where he had been living.

He also admitted other offences including obstructing a PC, theft, possession of a knife, fraudulent use of a bank card,  and having cannabis.

Karl Scholz, prosecuting, said the engagement ring had been recovered when it was being smelted by specialists, but the jewels were missing. Bradshaw had 14 previous convictions.

Dafydd Roberts, defending, said Bradshaw, formerly of Gwynedd,  had ADHD and would find custody an ordeal.

While on remand he’d been locked in his cell for 23 hours a day.

He was sent to youth custody for 25 months. Judge Rees said that in the Milton Keynes burglary a woman had confronted him in her flat at 4am - “a frightening experience.”