Thieves jailed after being caught on CCTV on a two day crime spree in Hartlepool

The security footage showed Ryan Thompson, 22, and Dylan Turner, 19, in a stolen black Ford Fiesta with false licence plates who finally discovered a designer handbag worth £1,980 from the passenger seat of a parked car with a faulty locking system

At 2.40am on October 8 police received several reports from members of the public that two men in a black Ford Fiesta were trying the door handles of houses in central Hartlepool, said prosecutor Shaun Dryden.

Officers found the car parked outside a convenience store, and in the boot were more licence plates and two stolen laptops.

Turner had some stolen bank cards in his pockets and also a folded lock knife, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The thefts were committed on the nights of October 7 and 8, and the owner of the designer handbag said that it had been a present to her and she could not afford to replace it.

Tcourt heard Turner had 15 convictions for 32 offences including house burglaries beginning when he was 12, and Thompson had nine convictions for 15 offences.

Dan Cordey, defending Thompson, said that he was expecting a jail sentence, adding: “He wants to get all matters sorted out and be sentenced today so that he can leave prison with a clean sheet and get on with his law-abiding life.”

Andrew Teate, defending Turner, said that the offences were not his idea, but he was a willing participant.

He added: “It was an opportunistic spree by them, they had no tools. He is young enough to turn his life around and he has the support of a stable family.”

Judge Howard Crowson said that it was a spree of offending over two days or two nights, and he knew that prison would be harder for them because of the Covid epidemic.

Thompson was also being sentenced for dangerous driving of a motor cycle on false plates, without insurance and a licence during a police chase on March 12 on the Coast Road near Blackhall.

Mr Dryden said that in a bid to evade arrest he rode on the pavement doing a wheelie, on the wrong side of a traffic bollard before turning around and passing the police vehicle. He left the bike and his leathers in the yard of a house in Blackhall and was arrested as he walked off with a friend.

Thompson of Chester Road, Hartlepool, was disqualified for 28 months and until he passes an extended driving test, after he was found guilty of dangerous driving and the motoring offences in his absence when he refused to come out of his prison cell for a magistrates court hearing earlier.

He and Turner, of Garside Walk, Hartlepool, were jailed for 28 months after he admitted burglary, and both admitted theft, taking a car without consent, interference with motor vehicles.

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