A WINDOW cleaner who was found wearing a young mother’s knickers when police arrested him for burgling her home has walked free from court.

Alan Sayer sneaked into his 19-year-old customer’s home in Newton-le-Willows through an open window.

He then snatched a bra and two pairs of knickers from her bedroom.

But he was caught out after sending his victim a handwritten note asking for a date.

And when the 36-year-old was taken into police custody at St Helens officers found him wearing the victim’s pink and black knickers.

The crime is said to have left her “sickened and frightened”.

Sayer, who has a string of previous convictions, had served 80 days in custody since pleading guilty to the offence at St Helens Magistrates’ Court.

Sentencing Sayer at Liverpool Crown Court, the judge, Recorder Nicholas Fewtrell described the break-in as “a major breach of trust”.

He added: “Members of the public expect those who do work in their houses should have standards of uppermost decency.”

But, acknowledging Sayer’s time served on remand and early guilty plea, he issued a suspended nine-month prison term.

Prosecuting, Mandy Nepal explained how the mother had been stopped in the street by the window cleaner on the morning of November 10 last year.

She said: “She told him she was going to her mother’s house that day.

“(But) at about 1pm that day the defendant came to her mother’s house and said someone had broken into her property, explaining the back window was open and the blinds were up.”

The woman “panicked” and went to the house with her father but nothing appeared to have been taken from the house.

Ms Nepal added: “Later in the evening she noticed her underwear drawer was open and three items of underwear were missing, which were a pair of pink and black knickers, a polka dot bra, bra straps and laced French knickers.”

The woman was reassured by her family but contacted officers after being spooked by a letter Sayer delivered through her door the next day.

Ms Nepal continued: “She received a note through the door which read: ‘Do you want to go for a date’. It was from the window cleaner – that frightened her and she contacted police.”

After his arrest, bra straps belonging to the victim were found in his bedroom and he was found wearing her underwear at St Helens police station.

He tried to claim the knickers belonged to his ex-girlfriend but his story unravelled and he confessed to his crime at St Helens Magistrates’ Court.

Making reference to the St Helens Star’s presence in court and the embarrassing publicity that would follow for Sayer, Robert Wyn Jones, defending, said: “It’s not illegal to wear women’s underwear – even in St Helens.

“No doubt on release life in St Helens will be uncomfortable enough and windowing cleaning difficult.”

Mr Wyn Jones offered little explanation for why Sayer had committed the crime but suggested the use of amphetamine drugs had given him the urge to go into her house.

Sayer, of Sankey Street, Newton, has seven previous convictions for 17 offences since 2003. However, none of those offences related to other underwear thefts and a psychiatric report came back clear.

He was also sentenced to carry out 250 hours unpaid work and handed a restraining order, which states he must not contact the victim.