A burglar who smashed his way out of a takeaway restaurant with a crowbar, assaulted a policewoman who chased him from the scene and then hid under a boat was last night facing a jail term.

A Supreme Court jury took almost three hours yesterday afternoon to find Brian Carlton Rogers guilty of breaking into Island Fried Chicken on Court Street, Hamilton, with intent to commit a felony.

They also convicted him of assaulting P.c. Veronica Outerbridge, wilfully damaging a cash register and glass door at the restaurant and being found armed with a crowbar at night with intent to steal.

Rogers, who denied all the charges and claimed it was a case of mistaken identity, was remanded in custody after a bail application from his lawyer Rick Woolridge was rejected by Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.

The six-man, six-woman jury was sent out at 1.30 p.m. after closing speeches from Mr. Woolridge and prosecutor Graveney Bannister and a summing up by Mr. Justice Greaves.

At 4 p.m. they had still not reached a unanimous verdict on any of the charges and the judge told them he would accept majority decisions.

Twenty five minutes later they returned with a majority of ten to two on the first count and 11 to one on the other three.

Mr. Woolridge said afterwards that he intended to appeal the convictions on “various points of law and certain errors that have occurred”.

The court heard during the three-day trial that Rogers was identified by Police officers as he fled the scene of the break-in after smashing through the glass at the front of the shop.

P.c. Outerbridge told how she chased him to a nearby church and grabbed his trousers as he tried to scale a wall.

She said he kicked out in a bid to get away, injuring her right wrist.

Rogers was discovered soon after hiding under a boat in the car park of Jamaican Grill. He was “breathing heavily and sweating profusely” despite it being a cold night, according to one officer. The 45-year-old, of North Terrace, Pembroke, told Police: “What happened? I was here all the time.”

Rogers told the court it was not him who broke into the restaurant.

He said when he was spotted running in the area by Police officers in the early hours of January 6, 2006, he was reacting to what he thought was a gunshot.

He claimed he kept running when the Police gave chase because he was scared of being shot, adding that he was also afraid of a Pitbull dog on the other side of a wall from the boat.

Mr. Bannister told the jury: “The defence case is full of holes, full of lies.

‘You know when something has the ring of truth. Are you going to buy this story?”

Mr. Justice Greaves asked the jury to consider whether it was mere coincidence that Rogers was found “sweating” under the boat soon after someone whom Police officers believed to be him was seen running away from the break-in.

“In this case, the only evidence of any gun shot ... comes from the defendant,” he said. “There were a lot of other witnesses.”

Mr. Woolridge earlier questioned why there was no forensic evidence brought forth and why the crow bar — which Rogers ditched during the chase — was not produced as evidence.

He said his client did not deny being in the area but was “guilty of only one thing, according to Confucius, who said ‘don’t fix your hat under the apple tree or tie your shoes in the melon patch if you don’t want to look suspicious’”.

Mr. Justice Greaves requested a social inquiry report and adjourned the case for mention on April 2 pending sentence.