Car theft plot teenagers jailed

A teenager who stole cars after sneaking into workplaces in Leeds and Wakefield and taking employees' keys has been jailed.

Patrick Maughan, 18, of Cardinal Avenue, Beeston, targeted premises including the Lawnswood Arms pub on Otley Road, Leeds, and Sandal Rugby Club in Wakefield.

Maughan was jailed for two years. A 16-year-old accomplice, who cannot be named, was handed a 16 month detention and training order. Both admitted conspiracy to steal.

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Prosecutor Chloe Hudson said a woman who works at the Lawnswood Arms on Otley Road, Leeds, discovered at 9pm on July 30 that her VW Up car had been stolen from outside the pub.

CCTV footage identified Maughan in a staff only area at the pub where the car keys were stolen from.

A Vauxhall Corsa was stolen from the car park at Hampsons Plantworld garden centre on Denby Dale Road, Wakefield, on August 16. The keys were taken after a worker’s locker in an employee only area was forced open.

Miss Hudson said on the same day a Vauxhall Corsa was stolen from outside a Co-op garage in Cleckheaton after keys were stolen from an employee’s handbag in an office.

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Also on August 16, a Ford Fiesta was taken from outside Sandal Rugby Club in Wakefield after keys were stolen from the club’s gym changing rooms.

Adrian Pollard, mitigating for Maughan – who has committed 80 previous offences – said he cannot read and write, adding: “He probably has had a tremendously unstable background.”

Jailing Maughan for two years, Recorder Toby Wynn told him: “It is extremely distressing to me Mr Maughan to see a young man of 18 in your situation where the only sentence I can contemplate is one of two years in prison.”

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