A 32-year-old man who broke into a woman’s house and was found reading a boardgame box in her spare bedroom has been given a three-year community order.

Louis Snaith, of Bradfield St George, was sentence for three counts of criminal damage at Ipswich Crown Court on Tuesday.

The court heard Snaith is on anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication and the first two counts happened in Cambridge in February last year after he left a hospital he had been voluntarily attending.

Prosecutor Fredrick Batstone said witnesses saw him smashing the windscreen of a grey Audi vehicle and stamping on the windscreen of a black Audi and using wood branches to shatter the glass.

Mr Batstone said the damage to Nina Smith’s grey Audi was £6950 which she claimed through insurance with an excess of £200.

“I looked out of my office window and saw to my horror a white male jump on my car,” Mrs Smith said in a statement read out by Judge Martyn Levett to the court.

“He stood on the bonnet and began hitting it continuously.”

She explained how witnessing the crime had changed her.

“The incident has left me unable to go out on my own.

“It has left me feeling traumatised to the point where I experience flashbacks.” Mrs Smith said.

The court heard she was signed off from work by her GP and she added: “I’m still extremely emotional when I think about what happened.”

The other Audi owner did not provide a statement or the value of the damage.

In May Snaith then broke into the house of Karren Jackson in Ipswich.

Prosecutor Batstone said Ms Jackson, who lives alone, woke up at 2.50am after hearing a window smash.

She went into the spare bedroom in her house and saw Mr Snaith entering through a window and she asked him to leave but he continued to enter so she ran back into her bedroom to call police, the court heard.

Her neighbours heard commotion and called police.

When she returned to the spare room, she saw him sitting in bed with a duvet over his legs reading the cover of a board game, Mr Batstone said.  

Ms Jackson and her neighbour, who had come in, tried to speak to Snaith but got no response.

Eventually he climbed out of the window and was then arrested according to Mr Batstone.

Judge Levett read out a statement from Ms Jackson who said: “I live alone, and I found waking up in the middle of the night to someone smashing a window very traumatic.

“It was like being in a horror movie” she added.

“I could not sleep in my own house for a week, and I no longer feel safe in my own home.

“This experience has left me feeling very vulnerable”.

Defence barrister Simon Walters gave mitigation for Snaith and said the defendant should be given a community order because of the severity of the mental disorder at the time the offenses were committed.

Mr Walters added Snaith’s guilty pleas and lack of previous convictions should count in his favour and that he is cared for by his “extremely supportive” mother and stepfather who he said are helping to improve the defendant’s mental health.

Judge Levett gave Snaith a three-year community order, along with 18 months of mental health treatment sessions and added: “It will be far better for people to manage you in the community than in prison where you would not receive the appropriate treatment”.

Snaith was also ordered to pay a total of £400 in compensation.