A BUILDER who won £1million on an Ant and Dec gameshow has been cleared of burgling a house.

Nathan Hageman was snared by police after they thought they spotted a tattoo on his bottom on CCTV while a crook broke into a family home and stole a safe containing £8,000.

Jurors were told the 37-year-old, along with accomplice Nathan Taylor, took the safe containing the cash from a Crowthorne property Hageman was working on renovating a bathroom. 

However Mr Hageman, who won big on TV show Red and Black, was acquitted after claiming the break in had been an inside insurance job involving the homeowner Rebecca Varley, who was away at the time.

John Simmons, defending Hageman, suggested the mother and daughter agreed to  the burglary taking place while Rebecca was on a weekend break in Telford with her son in 2015.

Simmons told the mother: "You talked to him about the fact that you have made a lot of money in the past.

"You told him about the safe and you told him that it was insured and you tried to ask him to fake a burglary."

Nathan Hageman, of Ambrook Road, Reading, was acquitted by a jury of one count of burglary and one count of converting criminal property at Reading Crown Court on Monday, February 13.

On February 16 Nathan Taylor, 29, of Holberton Road, Whitley Wood, who had previously admitted offences relating to the break-in, was sentenced to 30 months for one count of burglary and two months for one count of converting criminal property, to run concurrently.