A serial burglar was caught when forensics officers traced his DNA from a tiny smear left at the scene of one of his crimes.

Selwyn Daley was jailed last week less than two months after he broke into and ransacked a home in Wilton Road, in the Coppetts area of Barnet.

Specialist officers found no fingerprints or DNA in the property but were able to test a small greasy smear left on a window.

The owner of the house had returned on January 31 to find the lights on and the house ransacked.

Personal items and electrical goods totalling £2,700 had been taken and two doors had been damaged.

It later emerged the burglar had climbed over a garden fence and broken into the shed to get some tools to force a window open.

The tiny sample left at the scene was tested by forensics officers who traced it to 53-year-old Daley, of Moray Road, Finsbury Park.

He was arrested on February 17 at his home, where police also found a camera taken during the burglary.

He pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to two years and four months in prison at Wood Green Crown Court on Wednesday, March 27.

A Barnet Police spokesman said: “The more sophisticated the technology gets, the more often we are able to prosecute burglars.

“We need far smaller samples now than we used to. This was some excellent work by our forensics officers.”