A career criminal with more than 60 convictions was imprisoned for five-and-a-half years for a raid on a Warwick house that netted cash and an iPhone.

Christopher Winslow Ray, 43, of Warwick, and an accomplice were interrupted by a woman who returned home early.

Ray and Damon Morris, 25, from Paget, admitted breaking into the Rockland View house on November 19.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons noted that Morris, who had no previous convictions, played a minor role. She sentenced him to a one-year probation order, sparing the 25-year-old any further prison time.

“I can assure you that this will never happen again. I embarrassed myself and my family,” said Morris, before apologising to the court, victim and his family, expressing remorse for being away from his son.

After reviewing the 22 pages of antecedents chronicling Ray’s life of crime, Mrs Justice Simmons ordered that available programmes deemed suitable be made available to him.

Ray asked for leniency, saying that despite his criminal record he still hoped he could turn his life around.

“Listening to my record as it was summarised was embarrassing to say the least,” he said. “I know what I did was wrong. I’m not trying to take away from that.

“All I’m asking for is a chance to prove that I’m better than this. That my place in society doesn’t have to be prison all the time.”

Prosecutor Takiyah Burgess called the offence a “total invasion of privacy” and called for a sentence of between three and five years in prison.

She told the court that the complainant had returned home around 11am and saw a gate which she had left closed was open.

As she continued to look around she noticed a garage window was open, and a closet door inside the house appeared to be open, when both were usually left shut.

She then heard what appeared to be people inside the house and called her husband to ask if he had returned home.

She entered the home and noticed that a $250 iPhone and $250 in cash had been removed, and a hammer and a crowbar had been left on their couch. Ray’s DNA was later found on both the hammer and the crowbar.

At around the same time the complainant returned home, a plainclothes officer in the area saw the two defendants exit the home through a door on the northern side and begin to walk to Rocklands Road.

Uniformed officers arrived on the scene shortly afterward and saw Ray and another man sitting on a nearby wall. On the wall next to the men was the stolen iPhone.

Police later received a report that Morris had hidden inside the ceiling of a neighbouring property and refused to come out.

Officers cordoned off the property and a negotiator was brought in. Morris later surrendered to police without further incident.

Ms Burgess told the court that Ray was a “prolific repeat offender” who had racked up 29 convictions for trespassing/breaking and entering and 33 convictions for fraud.