A homeless church burglar has been jailed for 15 months but has been forgiven by the clergy.

David Spencer, 42, was handed the prison sentence last week after pleading guilty at Isleworth Crown Court to seven counts of burglary and burglary with intent.

Spencer, of no fixed address, targeted Chiswick Methodist Church, in Sutton Court Road, and Chiswick Baptist Church, in Annandale Road, in June last year.

Pastor Steve Messersmith, of Chiswick Baptist Church, said: “There are no hard feelings. I offer him complete and utter forgiveness.

“We can’t ask to be forgiven if we can’t forgive others.”

However, he said Spencer, who smashed a window of the church and ransacked the pastor’s office, had to face up to what he had done.

He added: “You have to face your crime. He was wrong to break the law. In this society we don’t want to punish people for doing wrong, but if we don’t it breeds anarchy.”

Spencer carried on his campaign a month later by breaking into St Michael’s Sutton Court Church, in Elmwood Road.

Vicar of the church Reverend Nicholas Fincham said Spencer had caused hundreds of pounds worth of damage to the church in the break-in last July.

He said: “He broke one of the doors and one of the windows.

“We think he was after money but we don’t keep any in the church.”

The court heard Spencer often left empty-handed or with a meagre amount of no more than a few pounds from his targets.

Speaking on Spencer’s behalf, defence counsel Franco Tizzano claimed the burglaries were not motivated by greed, but by some sort of grievance against the church.