One member of a criminal gang which burgled a Kendal home and made off with two luxury vehicles valued at almost £54,000 has been jailed for three years.
Carlisle Crown Court heard how intruders raided a couple’s Helsington Road house while the husband was asleep inside between 2am and 3am on February 11.
They forced entry before snatching the female householder’s handbag, purse and keys to a £29,950 Audi S3 and a Mercedes GLA valued at £23,995.
Street CCTV showed three males exiting a Ford Mondeo estate at 2-24am before the three vehicles left in convoy 20 minutes later.
Jason Liddell, 33, had hired the Mondeo from a firm in Blackpool two days before the raid. It was fitted with a tracker which showed it was driven to Kendal that night from Shipley in West Yorkshire.
Liddell was caught on camera filling it with fuel at Killington Lake Services, off the M6, just half an hour before the crime. “The tracker confirmed that it was parked at the burglary scene at the relevant time,” said prosecutor Andrew Evans.
Liddell admitted burglary and stealing both cars on the basis that he had no role in the planning of the crimes, but accepted renting the Mondeo and being part of a joint enterprise.
The court heard he made a £120 taxi journey with an unidentified accomplice hours after the burglary, returning to the Kendal outskirts to collect the Mondeo, which was then driven to West Yorkshire.
The Mercedes was later found crashed and burned out, while the couple later described their ordeal as “numbing”.
Liddell, of Stonecrop Place, Ayr, was said to have fallen in with old criminal associates after his relationship briefly faltered.
Judge David Potter noted Liddell had an “appalling” record for acquisitive crime over many years which had slowed but not stopped during the past decade.
“Clearly these vehicles had come to the attention of organised criminals and so it was that you and others formed a group that travelled to (the couple’s) home in order to commit the burglary,” said Judge Potter as he passed sentence. “It was, therefore, targeted and it was planned.”
