A homeless man has been jailed after he repaid the kindness of a tea shop owner who helped him by breaking into the café and leaving it covered in blood.
Darren Watts had been offered food and kindness by the two ladies who ran the shop but they were left traumatised when they went back the next day to find it wrecked.
He cut his leg while climbing through a broken front window of the Exwick Pantry in Exeter and left so much blood on the floor and work surfaces the owners had to shut for two days to clear up the mess.
The closure and repairs cost them almost £2,000 which may come out of their pockets because they are struggling to claim on insurance.
Watts, aged 21, stole just £80 from the till and went on to burgle the Hush legal high shop in Exeter's Fore Street on the same night before attacking police when the arrested him.
He told a probation officer he did not 'give two sh*ts' about his victims and claimed he was doing the public a favour by targeting the legal high shop.
Watts, of no fixed abode, admitted two burglaries and assault on police and was jailed for two years by Judge Phillip Wassall at Exeter Crown Court.
He told him:"I have never read a more depressing pre sentence report. In a lifetime in the criminal law I cannot remember a worse record for someone who is just 21.
"You have 58 convictions for theft, 24 burglaries and 20 cases of assaulting police when they arrest you. Whenever you don't have money you break into premises to get it.
"Your attitude is summed up by what you told the report writer about the burglary at Hush. You said 'to be honest I don't give two sh*ts. Society should be grateful to me for stealing substances which others could misuse'.
"The two ladies who run the café have certainly been affected. They had been kind to you but you went back there and caused them significant loss.
"The fact that the floor was covered in blood with glass all over the place has had a real impact on the people who run the shop."
Mr Gordon Richings, prosecuting, said Watts was arrested near the Hush legal high shop after he broke in and triggered an alarm in the early hours of November 13.
The next morning Kay Guerin and Marilyn Armstrong opened the Exwick Pantry and found the floor and work tops covered in blood and broken glass and the till raided.
He said they had to close the shop for two days to clear up the mess, causing loss of earnings and inconvenience to them and their customers.
Mr Peter Seigne, defending, said Watts was homeless at the time and in need of money to live. He had been abusing legal highs before he broke into the shop which sold them.
He said he had not intended to cause damage at the tea shop but had done so as a result of cutting himself as he broke in.
