Preston burglar caught red-handed by police officer returning home

On third Tuesday of September 1956 as Police Sergeant R.G. Walton was approaching his home in Moor Avenue, Penwortham, after finishing a day’s duty at the Lancashire County Police HQ at Hutton, he heard the sound of breaking glass and observed a man at his front door.

No doubt startled by the appearance of a police officer the would-be-intruder took to his heels running into the back garden of the house where the officer apprehended him after a struggle.

The man was taken to Penwortham police station where he revealed he was Thomas Joseph Madden, aged 45, of no fixed abode.

When he was searched it was suspected that certain items in his possession were from a break-in a few days earlier at Maghull.

After being formally cautioned he opted to remain silent and was kept in custody.

Madden appeared before the Leyland magistrates in early October where he was charged with breaking and entering the Maghull house and stealing jewellery and cash valued at over £107 belonging to Thomas Lewis a gas engineer.

He was also charged with attempting to break into the Moor Avenue home of PS Walton.

The court heard how PS Walton arrested the accused after seeing a glass panel in his front door smashed and Mr. Lewis gave details of the daytime raid at his home and how he had returned to discover his front door smashed open and rooms ransacked as the intruder had searched for valuables.

Madden who pleaded guilty as charged was refused bail and sent for sentencing at the next Lancashire County Quarter Sessions held a few days later. He appeared before Judge Francis Raleigh Batt asking for 19 other similar offences to be taken into consideration involving property valued at over £2,000, of which only £11 had been recovered.

In his defence Mr. R. Baker told the court that Madden had only come out of prison in March 1956 after serving a seven-year term. Stating that he had been determined to go straight and get employment, but unfortunately after starting work he had lost his job due to a skin complaint.

He pleaded that Madden be given a chance and called on his behalf Madden’s girlfriend Kathleen Dean, of Bootle, who told the court they intended to be married and she would make sure he never appear in the dock again.

After retiring and considering an appropriate sentence Judge Raleigh Batt addressed the prisoner telling him that breaking into dwelling houses was a most serious crime that brought terror to the victims.

Much to the despair of Madden and his tearful girlfriend he was then informed that he would go to prison for 10 years.

The Penwortham police station opened in the 1930s on the junction of Liverpool Road and Crookings Lane was sold at auction for £350,000 in 2013.

It was later demolished and the site is now home to a branch of the Ribble Vets who care for all creatures great and small and was opened in 2017.