Hartlepool booze bandit put behind bars

Released prisoner Terry Atkin, 31, confessed that he sold some of his Hartlepool hauls and drank the rest of it.

He stuffed his rucksack and carrier bags with up to nine bottles at a time on four occasions before breaking into one store through the roof and emerging with bags of booze into the arms of waiting police, Teesside Crown Court was told.

He was on prison release licence for a previous burglary and he was also in breach of a suspended sentence with his shop raids which involved a considerable amount of planning, said prosecutor Matthew Hopkins

On August 23, the court heard that Atkin went into an ASDA store in Hartlepool and walked straight to the alcohol, put his bag on the floor and dropped in four bottles of gin worth £100 and left.

On August 26, he went back to the store and took seven bottles of gin worth £175, and on September 29 he walked into a Sainsbury’s store in Sedgefield and took nine bottles of whisky worth £225 and left without paying.

He was stopped driving off in a Transit van with another man and the bottles were found. He admitted that he was going to sell them.

On October 16 at 10am, he went into an Aldi store in Bishop Auckland and stole four bottles of gin and vodka worth £77. An off duty policeman saw him leaving with his bag and arrested him at the scene. He was put into a police van where he repeatedly spat on the floor despite being told to stop doing it.

At 2.15am on 19 October, police went to the One Stop store, in Forester Close, Hartlepool, and found him coming out of one of the exit doors carrying several bags containing alcohol.

Mr Hopkins said: ”He had removed roof tiles and climbed in through a bathroom roof. He was seen on CCTV inside the store trying to get into the safe without success.”

The value of the burgled alcohol was £317 and he had a tool to get access to the bathroom. The total value of alcohol that he stole was £577.

Atkin was on bail and in breach of prison release licence and a suspended prison sentence. His prison recall will not end until March next year.

Ian West, defending, said that he had responded well to probation supervision but he was sofa-hopping after falling out with family members and he relapsed into drink and drugs.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: ”There is no alternative to custody today but I have in mind the length of the sentence that you will serve.”

Atkin, of St Ignatius Close, Sunderland, but formerly of Lothian Road, Hartlepool, was jailed for 60 weeks after he pleaded guilty to four shop thefts, burglary and criminal damage.