Pictured: Burglar has to be rescued after getting stuck in bathroom window as he tries to climb into woman's house

A hapless burglar had to be rescued after getting wedged in a bathroom window.

Sean Crawshaw, from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, was caught dangling from the upstairs window of a house he was trying to raid.

The occupant, a woman in her 60s, saw him suspended from the window after she returned from a trip out.

Crawshaw, 47, had shimmied up the drainpipe and managed to poke his head through the window – but the rest of him failed to follow.

He was found stuck kneeling on the windowsill and when police officers PC Dolan and PC Grady arrived on scene the fire service was called. It took 20 minutes to free him in the incident last December.

Sergeant Richard Garland, of the Greater Manchester Police Whitefield team, said: "Poetic justice has been served.

“It doesn't happen very often. Although we can laugh at him we mustn’t forget that the poor lady in the house was very upset by it – she’s still a victim.

“Crawshaw was so firmly wedged the fire service had to use some force to get him out and he ended up with some cuts and scrapes to his ear and face.”

Crawshaw pleaded guilty to burglary at Minshull Street Crown Court and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.