Four-year sentence for serial burglar Richard Grimshaw (From Dorset Echo)

Four-year sentence for serial burglar Richard Grimshaw

11:30am Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News By Harry Hogger

A SERIAL offender convicted of a burglary at a Weymouth hotel has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Richard David Grimshaw, 42, was found guilty of entering the bar and ballroom area of the Riviera Hotel with intent to steal following a trial at Dorchester Crown Court.

The jury in the trial heard how Grimshaw had booked into the hotel on the evening of July 11 and was spotted in the ballroom at 1am by security guard.

He fled and was later found by a police dog handling unit in bushes nearby, where a chisel and a pair of blue latex gloves were also discovered.

Grimshaw had claimed he had been in the ballroom because he had got back to the hotel late and had climbed in an open window as he was trying to sneak others back to his hotel room.

It took the jury of three men and nine women less than an hour to reach their unanimous guilty verdict.

Following the conviction, they were told that Grimshaw, of Chapelhay Heights, Weymouth, had a total of 21 previous convictions for 70 offences, including more than 25 burglary offences.

In June 2005 he was sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison for robbery, five non-dwelling burglaries and other offences.

Edward Elton, representing Grimshaw, said that his client had been released on licence on April 20 and, as a result of the offence at the Riviera Hotel, had been recalled to serve the rest of that sentence with a release date of December 2015.

He stressed that in the latest incident the defendant had not actually taken anything and no damage was caused to the hotel.

Mr Elton added that there was no evidence of any violence threatened towards the security guard Shaun Pommells.

Judge Roger Jarvis told Grimshaw: “You committed this offence in July 2012 when you were on licence from prison and you were on licence for what seems to have been a very serious offence of robbery. You were released on licence in April this year and not a very long time after, you committed this burglary.”

The judge also pointed to Grimshaw’s ‘dreadful record’ and said he believed the attempted burglary of the Riviera had been ‘carefully planned’.

He added: “The public need to have real protection from you and the way you abuse their property.”