Judge is stunned at CPS decision
A judge has criticised the prosecution of a gang of lorry thieves blaming decisions by the Crown Prosecution Service for "enabling them to commit more crime".
Judge Richard Bray branded the decision to release the gang on bail as "extraordinary", after their arrest in Northampton in March 2008, saying he was "utterly amazed" by the incompetence.
Sitting at Northampton Crown Court, the judge made his remarks while jailing John Turner, aged 21, Lee Howe and Shoukat Ali, both aged 24, from Leeds, for a series of professional lorry thefts.
Claire Howell, prosecuting, said they were first arrested when an oxyacetylene torch was used in an attempt to steal goods from a lorry parked up for the night in Towcester.
The driver disturbed the gang and called police who traced a stolen lorry they were using to the northbound M1 at junction 15a, where it stopped in the fast lane and the gang ran off.
Miss Howell said the force helicopter was called in and Turner was soon found "muddy and out of breath" after police were alerted to a man prowling in a Kislingbury garden.
Howe was arrested nearby and Ali was caught after being spotted walking northbound, between junctions 16 and 17, three hours later.
The court heard they were all released, with DNA later linking Ali to a bottle in the stolen lorry.
Judge Bray said: "They were released on bail? Really! This is serious professional crime. They were caught red-handed and then they are released."
Two months later, three men were seen by a security guard making off in a lorry which had been stolen a week earlier in Lancashire, from North Port Way, Spinney Hill, Northampton.
Another lorry which was again parked up for the night had been broken into by using cutting equipment and 158 boxes of Amipure air freshener were missing.
They were later found when officers arrested the gang having traced the lorry to Wellingborough.
Turner and Howe admitted theft and attempted theft while Ali pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal. Lorry driver Howe was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and Ali was jailed for 10 months.
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