BOOZED-UP BURGLAR WINKED AT POLICE OFFICER AND EXPOSED HIMSELF IN BACK OF POLICE VAN
A burglar who was spotted out and about in his underwear, exposed himself to a police officer after he was arrested.Craig Moroney, 35, was seen staggering through Redcar town centre with just his pants on.
He was intoxicated, bleeding from his nose and carrying a kitchen knife - when a council CCTV operator spotted him.
Moroney was out at 1am on August 7, having been granted bail by the police after burgling the town's Subway months earlier.
He was arrested and put in the back of a police van.
But Teesside Crown Court has heard that he began winking at the female officer accompanying him in the back of the van.
The officer said she began to feel uncomfortable as Moroney stared at her.
He told her that his tracksuit pants had been taken "and he would have stabbed someone in the street." Moroney winked at the officer again and exposed his genitals.
On Monday, Cainan Lonsdale, prosecuting, said that Moroney made a lewd comment to his victim "and exposed himself three times to her.
He then began banging his head on the wall of the van." Once at the police station, Mr Lonsdale said Moroney "continued winking and pursed his lips" at the officer, as he was being booked in.
The court heard that Moroney had been arrested weeks earlier, after he smashed his way into Subway, with a duvet wrapped around his head.
Moroney smashed the glass on the door of the town's High Street branch, grabbed the cash till tray and climbed back out through the hole in the door, late at night on June 14.
The sandwich shop was forced to stay closed the next day while the damage was repaired.
Moroney had got away with the cash float, which contained £150.
He later pleaded guilty to burglary; the possession of a knife in a public place; and exposure.
He has 84 previous convictions for 165 offences.
Mitigating, John Nixon said that his client has "a terrible record of offending" but that he endured "a very poor upbringing, with a father who was a role model not to be had." "He is a highly damaged young man," the defence solicitor continued.
"He is utterly mortified by the CCTV footage which shows what he did.
He apologises." The court heard that Moroney had fallen back into taking drugs, after previously giving up heroin.
Moroney, of Alfred Street in Redcar, followed court proceedings on video link from Holme House prison.
Judge Richard Bennett told him: "The exposure offence was very unpleasant indeed.
That police officer was in a confined space with you." He was locked up for 14-months and will serve 40% of his sentence, before being released under supervision.
