Two thieves who stole goods worth more than £20,000 during a burglary spree across Hambleton have been jailed for a combined eight years.
Lewis Hutchinson, 23, and Lewis Adams, 28, targeted farms, smallholdings and other rural properties where they stole agricultural vehicles, machinery and power tools, York Crown Court heard.
Over two months, the thieves — who were said to have worked as a gang with others — travelled from the Middlesbrough and Redcar areas to look for soft targets in rural Hambleton and the North York Moors.
They stole machinery and vehicles worth more than £23,000 after ramming gates, breaking padlocks and chains, hot-wiring quad bikes and stripping steel roller sheets and shutters from barns, sheds, garages, workshops and other outbuildings, said prosecutor David Gordon.
Other stolen items were of a value unknown and the thieves caused more than £10,000 damage to the many rural properties they targeted in the dead of night.
Hutchinson, of Edward Street, Eston, was initially charged with 27 counts of burglary but ultimately admitted 17 burglary charges and one count of conspiracy to burgle. The matters he denied were dropped by the prosecution.
Adams, of Wilton Way, Grangetown, ultimately admitted one count of conspiracy to burgle which encompassed four burglaries and two attempted burglaries.
Mr Gordon said that during the raids, which occurred between early December 2018 and mid-January 2019, the thieves stole quad bikes, Land Rovers, hand tools, power washers, chainsaws, hedge trimmers, diesel and fishing equipment from villages including Skutterskelfe, Knayton, and High and Low Worsall, as well as Northallerton.
At one property in Skutterskelfe, the thieves stole more than £6,400 of goods including a Yamaha quad bike, a chainsaw, a mobile phone and some diesel.
On the same day, a man woke to find his £8,000 Land Rover being driven off his driveway.
The victim’s 7ft tall cast-iron gate had been “broken open”, its smashed parts laid either side of the driveway.
Meanwhile, a farmer in Northallerton was counting the £2,000 repair cost of a raid on his property after the thieves broke into a feed shed to steal his quad bike.
Just for good measure, they had also damaged the driver’s door, ignition and lock on his Land Rover, resulting in an additional £600 repair bill.
A woman in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, had her quad bike stolen after the thieves broke a padlock to her outbuilding.
The bike was fitted with a tracker which enabled police to trace the vehicle to Hutchinson’s front garden in Teesside.
Police later found Hutchinson, “filthy and soaking wet (and) covered in mud”, walking along the A170 near Helmsley with another man. Hutchinson had £650 cash on him.
Hutchinson and later Adams were arrested but remained silent for the most part in police interview. They appeared for sentence via video link on Thursday after being remanded in custody.
Both men had a long list of previous convictions for burglary, theft in rural North Yorkshire.
Andrew Turton, for Hutchinson, said his client, a father-of-three and former factory worker in Stokesley, had fallen on hard times after losing his job.
Hutchinson had served a previous three-year prison sentence for similar matters from November 2019 and was due to be released partway through that sentence in October last year, but he was remanded in custody following his arrest for the new offences a few weeks before it expired.
Wayne Jackson, for Adams, conceded that the father-of-two had an “appalling” record and had served a previous three-year prison term from 2015 for a “much bigger” burglary conspiracy where farm and rural properties were targeted.
Recorder Alex Menary said the thieves had deliberately targeted “rural farms and vehicles and other rural properties” because they were in isolated locations and “generally poorly defended”.
He told the defendants: “This was targeted, focused and planned offending. You preyed on members of the rural community, causing (significant) loss (and) damage and ruining people’s livelihoods.”
Hutchinson was jailed for four years and three months. Adams was jailed for just under four years. They will both serve half of those sentences behind bars before being released on parole.
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