A homeless man was found in the garden of a house in Exeter after the owners heard someone moving around in the kitchen.
Matthew Stamp claimed he had been drinking and taking legal highs and had got lost while looking for a mystery woman who he met on Exeter's Cathedral Green.
He told a jury she had invited him back to her home in Magdalen Road in Exeter but he has no idea how he ended up in someone else's garden.
Householder Vernon Lester called the police after a friend who was watching television with him in the evening heard footsteps upstairs and spotted a stranger in the kitchen.
She fetched Mr Lester who found Stamp in his back garden, claiming to be lost and looking for another house.
Stamp, aged 29, of Smythen Street, Exeter, denies burglary with intent to steal at the house in April this year.
Mr Nigel Wraith, prosecuting, said Mr Lester had dozed off while watching television and a friend who was with him had woken him to say she had seen and heard an intruder in the house.
He found Stamp in his garden, where he gave a false name and said he was looking for a different house. He escorted him out and called the police when he saw him hanging around outside.
Mr Wraith said nothing was taken but the jury at Exeter Crown Court were told Stamp has two previous convictions for burglaries of private homes in similar circumstances in 2011 and 2012.
Stamp said he had been drinking and taking legal highs on Cathedral Green when his group were joined by a woman who befriended him and invited him to visit her at her home in Magdalen Road.
He said:"I had been drinking and been to a shop in the city centre to buy legal highs. I was with a group of people I had never met before and one was a woman who said she was staying in Magdalen Road.
"My memory is a bit hazy but I ended up in Mr Lester's address. I had never been there before. I remember walking towards the shops but honestly can't remember what happened from there.
"I just remember being in the back garden. I suppose I must have got over the wall at the back. I did not have any intention of stealing anything."
Ends
The trial continues
