A HOUSEBREAKER who targeted a sheriff's plush house and escaped with almost £30,000 of jewellery has been sentenced to four and a half years.

Michael Houston, 40, from Maryhill, broke into Maxwell Hendry's terraced house, believed to be worth £600,000, while the sheriff and his wife were on holiday.

Neighbours alerted the police when they heard the house alarm go off and footsteps inside the four-bedroom property on Kirklee Road in Glasgow.

Houston was snared when his DNA was found on the handle of a set of drawers in the main bedroom.

He pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to a string of charges between October 2012 and November 2013.