A 30-year-old unemployed man from Warrawong, Edwards proved the old saying “crime doesn’t pay” in more ways than one last year when he took a tumble while breaking into a school at Berkeley and ended up in hospital nursing multiple fractured bones and – no doubt – one bruised ego.

Court documents revealed Edwards climbed onto the Berkeley Public School roof sometime in the third weekend in October and entered the roof cavity through a whirly-bird ventilator.

Once inside, he smashed a hole through the ceiling, giving him access to the hall.

Edwards tried to remove a projector mounted on the ceiling, however lost his grip and fell about seven metres to the floor, leaving him with a fractured vertebra, two fractured fingers and a deformity to his heel bone.

He hobbled from the scene, leaving behind a Coles environmental bag containing screw drivers, a spanner and various store receipts, as well as a pair of pliers and a glove.

Police were later able to identify Edwards by matching CCTV footage from each store with the same time and date contained on the receipts.

Officers also checked hospital admissions for the same weekend, confirming that Edwards had been admitted on October 18 with injuries consistent with a fall.

He apparently told nurses he’d fallen off a horse at his cousin’s property. When arrested in February, he told police he’d fallen off a roof while retrieving a ball.

However he admitted the truth in court on Wednesday, pleading guilty to a charge of breaking and entering.

He will be sentenced on that and other charges next month.