A serial housebreaker was jailed for 15 months at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday for breaking into a property and stealing jewellery, a watch and a jewellery box.
Colin Reid, 30, of 22 Burnbank, Fochabers, was convicted following a trial by jury in April after trying to claim that a cigarette-end he dropped after smashing his way into the Loch Ness-side home could have been carried into the house on the sole of someone else’s shoe.
But members of the jury were told that his DNA was a match for a sample taken from the discarded butt, which was handed to police by 75-year-old homeowner Marion MacDiarmid.
She also gave evidence during the trial and insisted that it was not in her conservatory when she and her husband left their Drumadrochit home.
Reid used a rock to smash glass on the conservatory door before ransacking several rooms and stealing jewellery and a watch on March 31, 2013.
Although swabs and fingerprints were taken by a scenes of crime officer, they produced no evidence of the 30-year-old father-of-three being in the house.
Forensic experts said DNA from saliva on the cigarette matched Reid’s and the chance of it belonging to someone else was more than a billion to one.
The jury returned a guilty verdict by majority after only 45 minutes.
Reid, a self-employed gardener, admitted previous convictions, nine of which involved housebreaking and dishonesty.
When the trial opened Reid claimed a special defence of alibi, saying he was on the isle of Skye at the time of the crime.
But in evidence, he changed his story and insisted he had been in Drumnadrochit looking for work and had been delivering fliers at various properties.
Reid claimed the cigarette end must have been dragged into Mrs MacDiarmid’s home on someone’s shoe after he had been in the neighbourhood.
Yesterday defence solicitor, Leonard Burkinshaw, said that Reid’s wife was limited by health problems and a custodial sentence would impact on his responsibilities to look after his children.
Sheriff Margaret Neilson said: “Your record of analogous offending and the nature of the crime makes a custodial sentence appropriate.”