Two burglars who snatched high value quad bikes and were shown riding the stolen machines in a Snapchat video posted by one of the crooks shortly after their crime have been sentenced by a judge.
Carlisle Crown Court heard how a farmer finished work at his premises in Plumpton, near Penrith, at around 10pm on May 10 last year.
He left two Honda quad bikes, total value of £11,000, in a locked outbuilding but woke the following morning to discover they had been stolen. A set of discarded bolt-cutters were found nearby.
Police enquiries showed that the two men responsible for the night time raid were Mark Young, 25, and 41-year-old Stuart Kendrick.
Detectives learned a long base Transit van had been hired by a woman linked to Young just hours before the burglary. This van was captured on doorbell video footage close to the home of a third man who bought the stolen bikes at a midnight handover in Carlisle.
Police were also handed a Snapchat video showing two people riding the bikes which had been uploaded to an account linked to Kendrick. The court heard they were identified as Kendrick and Young by the buyer when he was interviewed.
Mobile phone mast analysis showed handsets belonging to the pair had travelled from Carlisle to the Plumpton area at around 10pm, and then back to the city.
Heavily convicted Carlisle duo Young, of Bower Street, and Kendrick, of Stonegarth, admitted burglary, Kendrick on the basis that he acted as a lookout and would have received drugs as payment for his role in the joint enterprise.
They were sentenced at the crown court today. Defence barristers spoke of personal tragedies in Young’s life, his drug addiction at the time of the burglary but of a more recent motivation to mend his ways. Kendrick was said to have a reducing drug addiction and had been complying with a previously imposed magistrates’ court order.
Young — a man with more than a dozen previous burglaries on his lengthy criminal record — was jailed for eight months. Kendrick had a six-month prison term suspended for two years. He must completed intensive rehabilitation and a “thinking skills” course.
Judge Nicholas Barker told the two men: “What is immediately apparent, in my judgement, is that there was a significant degree of planning that went into his burglary.”
