A burglar who boasted about his housebreaking skills has been foiled by DNA evidence.

Gary Vidgen, 40, who lives in Nether Street, was sentenced to 16 months in prison at Wood Green Crown Court for attempting to break into a house in St Mary’s Avenue in Finchley using a garden fork stolen from the house’s garden shed.

Vidgen denied the attempted burglary, saying he could not have been the culprit because he would have made a better job of it.

However DNA evidence obtained from the patio doors Vidgen had attempted to prise open with the garden fork was enough to place him at the scene.

Vidgen later admitted he had been at the house on January 8, which he claimed belonged to friends of his, but said he had left after he had seen the garden fork protruding from the patio doors and realised there was a burglar around.

A jury found him guilty after a one-day trial in Wood Green Crown Court last Monday.

Det Con Nigel Doyle of the Acquisitive Crimes Unit at Colindale said: “Gary Vidgen has carried out numerous property crimes against Barnet residents over the years; in fact he told the jury, ‘My defence is that I am so skilled a burglar that I could have done this and gotten away with it.’ 

“Smart forensic evidence has caught him in this case and, in view of Vidgen’s record, the judge has taken an appropriately serious view. The public should feel some reassurance that experienced criminals like Vidgen are being caught and convicted.”