Scrapyard was used to break up stolen truck
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• A man whose scrapyard was used to cut up a stolen truck has been given 140 hours of community service at Leicester Crown Court.
Thomas Hopkins of Gunthorpe Road, Braunstone, Leicester, pleaded guilty to a charge of dishonestly handling a stolen Iveco Ford box van. His pleas of not guilty to theft and handling other stolen property were accepted by the prosecution. He was ordered to pay £400 costs at the rate of £10 a week.
Prosecuting, Mark Wyatt said Hopkins owned a scrapyard in Sunningdale Road, Braunstone. On the evening of 8 June, he locked his yard and lent his key to a man he knew as a traveller called Mick, so Mick could take a lorry to the yard to be dismantled. An Iveco Ford box van, worth £12,500, and its load of 62 sheets of glass and three plastic dome lights, valued at £4,000, was stolen from where it had been parked in Leicester.
The vehicle, which was on contract hire to Dulpus Domes, was driven straight to Hopkins' yard. Hopkins arrived at the yard at about 10:00hrs the next day, and the newness and apparent value of the van must have told him that it had been stolen, said
Wyatt. He left the yard without reporting the incident to the police. At about 14:00 hours the police received a phone call. They arrived at the yard and found the van in its dismantled state. Hopkins arrived back at the yard about 15:00hrs and was arrested.
After Judge David Brunning had commented that the vehicle had been recovered in parts, Wyatt said its contents had disappeared. The engine had been removed and a substantial part of the van dismantled.
Defending, Maxine Kroner said that once Hopkins realised that the vehicle was stolen he refused to accept the payment that had been agreed for the use of his yard, Judge Brunning said Hopkins had pleaded guilty to an offence that amounted to helping a man who had committed a serious crime by providing the yard in which to begin to dismantle the lorry he had stolen. If Hopkins had been any further involved than seeing what was happening and initially turning his back he would have been facing a prison sentence. The kind of crime involved in the theft of vehicles was serious, running into thousands of pounds. The judge had considered a prison sentence, but he felt that a community service order was appropriate.