Confessions of a ‘small’ crook
Jonathan Brown

PACING around the front room of his terraced house, with the family Jack Russell yapping at the door, Lee Kildare appears agitated, rolling up his tracksuit trouser leg to reveal the grey plastic electronic tag that will ensure that he remains confined to his house as per court orders. "I've got to wear this for four months," he said. "I can't leave the house after 8 at night or before 7 in the morning. It is annoying. The summer is on and all my mates are outside drinking."

Measuring 3 feet-11inches, the 22-year-old has in recent days been described as Britain's smallest crook, generating headlines around the world from India to Australia after being convicted in a series of burglaries close to his home in Walker, Newcastle. Magistrates heard how Kildare, who has a rare genetic form of dwarfism called achon-droplasia, has been repeatedly used by gangs of housebreakers to enter small holes in derelict buildings to steal scrap metal now commanding record prices.

In his defence he claimed that because of his medical condition he has been unable to work and was forced to resort to crime in order to make ends meet, insisting: "It is a tall man's world." Kildare's lawyer Michael Crowe told Newcastle magistrate’s court: "It is right to say he has been taken advantage of on several occasions by others." His client had entered a council house through a low-door panel.

Officers spotted him when he poked his head back through the broken panel. This week Kildare found himself back in court, this time after he was caught stealing a giant bag of sweets from a hospital. The court heard how he had climbed through a smashed window. He was eventually spotted at a bus-stop holding the bag, which, it was pointed out, was nearly as big as he is. The media, of course, has been quick to spot the potential of the story.

Kildare has learned to live with TV crews and reporters parked outside the terraced house he shares with his mother, who also suffers from the condition, and his 11-year-old brother. "I've never had any trouble growing up around here," he said yesterday. "I know everyone and everyone knows me. I know all the popular people from school. So no one gives me any bother."

Despite his lawyer's protestations in court that he was the instrument of others, Kildare is adamant that everything he has done since getting involved in stealing scrap metal, he has done of his own accord. "People are just twisting it and newspapers have been making it up about me," he said. "I did it of my own free will. The house was derelict and people never suspect me because of my condition."

Locals regard him with affection. One neighbour said: "They've got it all wrong about him. He's hardly public enemy number one. He is a good lad." But Kildare's mother, who refused to give her name, says she is ashamed of him. "I'm disgusted. I think he should be in prison for it," she said.

As for Kildare, the future looks bleak, as he is forced to spend the remaining summer nights indoors watching television. But he remains philosophical. "I'm not that bothered. I'll just have to stick it."

— By arrangement with The Independent