Brett Peter Kerr has admitted a burglary-gone-wrong at a Prebbleton house where he was found apparently dazed from a fall.
Householders went to the house during the afternoon of January 28 and found the 28-year-old unemployed Bishopdale man in an incoherent state, they told the police.
They believed Kerr might have fallen and hit his head while trying to take a drum kit down a spiral staircase from the loft in the garage.
He pleaded guilty in the Christchurch District Court today to charges of burglary, resisting arrest, and setting fire to an item in the kitchen of the house. A more serious arson charge was withdrawn, Christchurch Court News website reported.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Mark Berryman said Kerr had entered the Shands Road property through a door he found unlocked.
He took a drum kit, watch, and large screen television which he tried to put in his vehicle.
He also set an oven mitt alight in the kitchen.
He struggled violently and tried to break free when he was arrested.
He said he had committed the offences because the householders owed him money for working in their vineyard.
Defence counsel Tony Garrett said reparation totalled $2705, much of it for commercial cleaning at the house, which had been filled with smoke.
Kerr was a quarter of the way to obtaining that figure and he was confident that if he were remanded on bail he would be able to pay reparation in full.
Judge Jane Farish remanded Kerr on bail to raise to the money before his sentencing on June 8. She asked for a probation report with an appendix to consider him for home detention, but warned there was no guarantee home detention would be allowed.
