A MAN has been found not guilty of committing a robbery at a Winchester home.

John Paul Gillingham, of Sussex Street, Winchester, was on trial at Winchester Crown Court this week accused of stealing from a home in Hyde Abbey Road on July 9, 2019, but a jury found him not guilty of the offence.

The 35-year-old previously already pleaded guilty to committing fraud by using banks cards to make purchases over £100 that were stolen during the robbery, but Gillingham said that he found the cards.

He will be sentenced for dishonestly making false representation to make gain for self or another on May 27.

During the trial, the court heard that victim Jaimini Moon saw a man in her bedroom at about 3.45am, she screamed, and her husband leapt out of bed and chased the man out of the house.

Giving evidence, she said: “I actually thought it was my husband, so I touched him, and it wasn’t, I realised it was someone else in my home and screamed. I screamed ‘there is a man in our house’.

“I just thought he was coming into hurt us. I was scared for my daughters. As soon as I screamed, he ran downstairs and out the door that he entered the house.”

During the incident two bank cards were stolen, along with cash and jewellery.

The jury were told that Mrs Moon picked Gillingham out a photo line-up, but the panel did not believe that he was the man who committed the robbery.