Hove serial burglar back behind bars 20 years after exposing ‘Paddy Pantsdown’

The Hove man who exposed Paddy Ashdown’s affair 20 years ago has been jailed again for burglary and fraud.

Career criminal Simon Berkowitz, 65, was sent back behind bars at Winchester Crown Court on Wednesday (6 June).

Berkowitz, of Fourth Avenue, Hove, was jailed for five years and six months for each of five burglaries and two years for going equipped for burglary in the New Forest in Hampshire.

He was also jailed for a year for fraud. All the sentences are to run concurrently, making a maximum of five and a half years.

Twenty years ago he was jailed for handling stolen goods after trying to sell private papers detailing the former Liberal Democrat leader’s affair with his secretary.

Berkowitz was accused of having stolen the papers in a break in at the politician’s solicitors but cleared of the charge.

The affair was reported under the memorable front-page tabloid headline “Paddy Pantsdown”.

Berkowitz carried out his most recent spree of burglaries last year. He was on release from prison on licence, having been sentenced to three years and four months in 2010.

As a result of a confiscation order for £83,000 he has had to sell his flat in Hove.

Judge Jane Miller said that he was a career burglar. His previous convictions date back more than 50 years to 1961.

She said that she was jailing him for as long as she was able to justify because the public needed protecting from him.