A man used a stolen truck taxi to get away with a trailer loaded with nearly 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs before turning himself in to police.
Joby Pool, 32, used a metal grinder to break into an industrial unit in Telford, Shropshire at around 7.30pm on February 11, before leaving with an assortment of chocolates worth over £31,000.
At Shrewsbury Crown Court, Pool, Dewsbury Road, Tingley, near Leeds, was jailed by Judge Anthony Lowe for a year and a half on Thursday, half to be spent in jail and the other half on license. The six months he has already spent in police custody will count towards the nine months spent behind bars.
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The court was told Pool had used a tractor which was stolen in the Yorkshire area in October to tow the trailer, which itself was worth around £23,000, full of Cadbury products from an industrial unit owned by SW Group Logistics in Stafford Park, Telford.
The stolen chocolate was then driven northbound on the M42, where Pool turned up walking towards police “hands up” near Junction 11, a hearing previously overheard.
Pool, who appeared in the dock on Thursday wearing a gray long-sleeved Adidas shirt, had previously admitted stealing, damaging a trailer park lock and driving without insurance.
Defending Pool, Debra White said he had shown “genuine remorse” for what he had done and was sorry for the effect it had on his family and the business involved.
She said: “There were two major losses in his life, then a third loss in terms of a relationship and a fourth in terms of losing his business. He had to deal with some tough stuff and he turned to drugs and alcohol as a crutch which made things worse for him.
“He took full responsibility. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself, he feels remorse for the company involved and his family because he knows he let them down. He’s been away from them for almost six months now and they’ve had to try to come to terms with it.
“The action he has taken in getting involved in this has impacted so many people and he is sincerely sorry for that, but he has already been punished by the fact that he has been in detention for five and a half months.”
Judge Lowe said he was not convinced Pool was the only person involved in planning the robbery.
He said: “Regardless of why you got involved and whether or not you appreciated the seriousness of what you were doing at the time, in my opinion you were involved in a very serious offence. Looking at what must have happened here, we are looking at a significant degree of planning.
“There was the taking of a tractor unit which was driven from Castleford here to commit the theft. There must have been inside information or reconnaissance to identify the trailer and whether it was worth taking.
“An angle grinder was taken and fake plates were obtained to put on the trailer. I’m pretty sure others would have been involved in this business. I don’t know what you intended to do with the trailer.
In addition to the jail sentence, Judge Lowe added a month to be served concurrently for the criminal offense and added six points to Pool’s driver’s license for driving without insurance. In a series of tweets posted two days after the robbery, West Mercia police explained how they “helped save Easter” after they foiled the thief.
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