That's not how mobile phones work buddy but nice try.

A Dublin man caught cycling the wrong way down a street with a stolen phone box under his jacket was sentenced to three years in jail this week, with the judge presiding over the case calling the man "either a very incompetent or very unlucky burglar".

The 38-year-old man, who has 58 previous convictions including 15 burglaries, was arrested on February 11th after gardaí spotted him trying to cycle down a city centre street while holding onto the phone box which the man later admitted to kicking off a wall of an office building.

The phone box, it was later discovered, had been out of use for years and was mostly full of Irish punts.

Having been released on bail for the offence, the same man was again arrested two months later when he and another were found in possession of a laptop and an iPad hidden in their jackets that neither could provide the access code to and were later found to be taken from a house in Dublin 4.

Pleading guilty to both burglaries, the man received two 18 month sentences which will be served consecutively.

Plenty of time to think up his next criminal mastermind act.

Via Sunday World