Burglar Steals Phone, Smashes Windows, Then Helps Himself to Birthday Cake

A sweet-toothed criminal's three-day crime spree included an unexpected dessert break.

READ or SHARE: https://weirddarkness.com/burglar-eats-birthday-cake

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WeirdDarkness #BurglarEatsCake #TrueCrime #BizarreCrime #StupidCriminals #CaughtOnCamera #UKCrime #WeirdNews #CakeThief #CriminalFails

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Most burglars have a plan. Get in, grab valuables, get
out fast. Abib Hussein apparently missed that particular seminar. I'm
Daryn Marler and this is weird dark news. Across England
and Wales. The house gets burgled every one hundred and
eighty nine seconds. That's roughly four hundred and fifty six

(00:33):
break ins per day, which sounds horrifying until you realize
that means there are burglars out there, so incompetent they
bring the average way down. Most break ins follow a
predictable pattern. This one took a scenic detour through someone's kitchen.
On July twenty sixth, twenty twenty five, Hussain showed up
at a home in Eames Gardens Well and Peterborough, armed

(00:55):
with small stones, not exactly Ocean's eleven level planning, more
like Ocean's eleven if they raided a garden instead of
a vault, but the stones did get the job done.
He used them to smash through the back door window.
Inside he grabbed a Samsung mobile thon standard operating procedure.
But then he spotted a birthday cake displayed in the kitchen.

(01:16):
And this is where his decision making really shines. He
cut himself a slice, not a handful of frosting shoved
in his mouth while fleeing, not a hasty finger swipe
across the top layer. A thirty three year old stopped
his crime spree to practice proper cake etiquette. One imagines
him weighing his options, Well, I've already committed breaking and entering,

(01:39):
might as well add unauthorized cake consumption to the charges.
CCTV cameras caught the whole thing, including footage of Hussein
walking out the same door he'd smashed, carrying the birthday cake.
A grown man casually strolling away from a burglary, birthday
cake in hand, probably looking like the world's worst party guest.

(02:00):
Thanks for having me, Sorry about the door, loved the cake.
Won't be sending a thank you note. Detective Constable George
Corny called Husain's behavior mind boggling coming from someone who
deals with criminals professionally. That's to say, in something that's
the law enforcement equivalent of Gordon Ramsay saying your cooking
is interesting. Research shows that more than half of all

(02:21):
burglaries happen when someone is actually home, which is terrifying
enough without adding baked goods to the equation, but Hussein
managed to add his own special twist to the trauma.
Thirty minutes after his cake intermission, Hussain hit a second
property on Summerbey, Garth and welland half an hour. The
man gave himself less recovery time between burglaries than most

(02:42):
people allow between meals. Patio doors seemed to be his
signature move. He smashed another rear patio door and made
off with steaks and other groceries. So now we're looking
at a crime spree with a meal plan. Dessert at
the first house, protein at the second. Somebody should check
he hit a third location for vegetables. The man was

(03:03):
doing meal prep via breaking and entering like Blue Apron,
except instead of a subscription box, you subscribe to felony charges.
Security cameras captured him before this burglary too. Statistics indicate
that around seventy percent of burglars enter it through doors
rather than windows, and Husain was clearly committed to this
time honor tradition. He was also committed to leaving forensic

(03:24):
evidence everywhere, like he was trying to set a record.
Police found his DNA on a cigarette butt outside the property,
But then again, some people do enjoy a nice cigarette
after a meal. Between the video footage and the biological samples,
Hussain was basically leaving a trail of breadcrumbs or in
this case, cake crumbs and cigarette butts. Hansel and Gretel

(03:44):
would be proud. The crime scene investigators probably didn't even
need their full toolkit, just a notepad that said this
guy with an arrow pointed at the footage. Nearly half
of all burglaries happened on the spur of the moment.
Criminals spot an opportunity and seize it, usually with no
more forethought than I wonder what's behind that open window.
The following day, in July twenty seventh, who say it

(04:07):
apparently spotted an open window at a house in Flora
Close in the Westward area of Peterborough. He climbed through it.
At least the patio door has got to break this time.
They'd really been taking a beating, but his shopping list
got more ambitious and considerably more baffling. He walked out
with a fifty inch television, a gold colored copy of
the Koran, and a selection of kitchen knives now televisions. Yeah,

(04:31):
that makes sense. Everybody steals televisions. They're valuable, they're everywhere
there's a decent resale market. Kitchen knives are concerning for
reasons that don't need elaboration. But that gold colored religious text,
that's the kind of item that might as well come
with its own wanted poster. It's distinctive, it's meaningful to
its owner. It's exactly the kind of thing that makes

(04:52):
detectives say, oh, we're definitely finding that. And doesn't the
Kuran say stealing is bad? I know the Bible does.
It's like stealing a Mona Lisa and being surprised when
people notice what It's just a painting. There are lots
of paintings. Yeah, but this one is gold and wholly.

(05:13):
Those are two adjectives that really narrow down the suspect
list when it shows up in someone's possession. Peter Burrow's
burglary rate sits at about three point three crimes per
one thousand people, below the national average. Husain was apparently
trying to single handedly bring those numbers up to more
competitive levels. If Peter Burrough is gonna make it onto
the burglary leader board, somebody has to do the work

(05:35):
on August first, police arrested Husaying, who also went by
the name Dylan Curry and had no fixed address. No
fixed address is putting it diplomatically. When they picked him up,
he was carrying the stolen gold colored copy of the Kuran,
not hidden in a storage locker three counties away, not
buried under the floorboards, not even in a backpack covered

(05:55):
by other items, just carrying it around like it was
a library book that he kept forgetting to return. This
is the criminal equivalent of shoplifting a television and then
using that as a hat. Officers had already identified him
by reviewing CCTV footage from all three burglaries, so they
had video evidence from multiple angles, DNA evidence from these

(06:16):
cigarette but and physical evidence in the form of easily
identifiable stolen property found directly on his person. If this
were a test on how to get caught one oh one,
Hussain didn't just ace it. He answered the extra credit
questions too. Only about five percent of burglary cases in
the UK result in prosecution. Most burglars get away with

(06:37):
it because they're careful, quick, and don't leave evidence scattered
around like confetti. Hussain took one look at that statistic
and said challenge accepted, how do I join the other
five percent? On November seventh, twenty twenty five, at Cambridge
Crown Court, Hussain admitted to three counts of burglary and
received a sentence of two years and two months in prison.

(06:58):
It's about ten months per or burglary, or if you
break it down by his crimes, roughly eight months for
breaking and entering and two months for the sheer audacity
of the cake theft. Detective Constable Corny pointed out that
these offenses had significant psychological and financial impacts on the victims.
When burglars cause damage breaking in victims face an average
repair cost of about fourteen hundred pounds, plus the value

(07:21):
of stolen items averaging around twenty eight hundred pounds, So
that's four thousand pounds in damages and losses. Hussain's hall
included a phone, some steaks, groceries, a TV, knives, a
religious text and one slice of birthday cake. The cake
to felony ratio here is really not working in his favor,
but the numbers don't capture the full cost. Having someone

(07:44):
break into your home violates your sense of safety in
the one place you're supposed to feel secure. Studies show
that eighty four percent of burglary victims experience emotional distress.
That feeling intensifies when the burglar is comfortable enough to
pause for snacks, like he's raising your bridge during a
sleepover that you didn't agree to host. There's a particular
kind of violation in knowing someone stood in your kitchen,

(08:07):
used your knife, cut your cake and help themselves, like
an uninvited guest at a party. The audacity Detective Constable
Corny mentioned isn't just about stealing. It's about the casual
entitlement of treating somebody else's home like a convenience store
with really laxed security. Oh is this your birthday cake?
My mistake. I thought all unguarded cakes were community property.

(08:31):
Cambridge Police noted that tackling burglary remains one of their
top priorities, presumably including burglars who cannot resist the dessert display.
Burglary rates in Petersborough have dropped by nearly eleven percent
year over year. If this is the caliber of criminal activity,
the city's dealing with. Criminals who document their crimes on camera,
leave DNA evidence, and steal items that scream I was

(08:54):
stolen and can't pass a birthday cake without stopping. That
downward trend makes a lot more sense. The whole three
day spree reads like a tutorial titled what not to
do if you're planning a life of crime, A comprehensive guide.
Don't leave biological evidence, don't get caught on camera at
multiple locations, don't steal things that are easily identifiable and irreplaceable,

(09:17):
don't carry said stolen items around in plain sight, and maybe,
just maybe, don't stop for birthday cake in the middle
of a burglary. Prison sentences give people time to reflect
on their choices. Hussain has two years and two months
to think about whether that slice of cake was really
worth it. Something tells me the answer is no. But hey,

(09:37):
at least I'll always have the distinction of being the
burglar who made Detective Constable Courney use the word mind
boggling in an official police statement. Not everyone can claim
that achievement. If you'd like to read this story for
yourself or share the article with a friend, you can
read it on the Weird Darkness website. I've placed a
link to it in the episode description, and you can
find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more,

(09:59):
including newumerous stories that never make it to the podcast
in my Weird Darknews blog at Weird Darkness dot com
slash news