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Gang behind £500k Black Country car thefts jailed after five-month crime madness, Express & Starlet

Express & Starlet

Key figures in a gang of youthfull crooks who stole more than £500,000 worth of luxury cars from Black Country homes during a five month crime spree were behind bars today.

The following is a total list of the cars stolen by the gang and the various other crimes and attempted crimes carried out in 2014:

• Trio/Four April. Address in Nottingham £30,000 Audi A5 stolen.
• 13 May. Hampshire Close, Tamworth. Burglars disturbed and made off without stealing two cars on the drive.
• 9 Aug. Andrews Close, Brierley Hill. Audi A6 £41,000, £21,000 Peugeot and £25,000 Vauxhall Insignia stolen.
• 12 Aug. Bernard Road, Oldbury. BMW M1 worth £20,000 stolen.
• Nineteen/20 Aug. Oakbarn Road, Hurst Green. £35,000 Range Rover stolen.
• Nineteen/20 Aug. Gower Road, Howley Grange. Laptop and car key stolen but vehicle could not be reached.
• Nineteen/20 Aug. Jasmin Croft, Kings Heath. Audi A3 stolen.
• 21/22 Aug. Yew Street, Merridale. £45,500 Audi RS5.
• 23 Aug. Barrs Road, Cradley Heath. BMW worth £22,000 and £7,000 Vauxhall Meriva stolen.
• 24/25 Aug. Wetherby Way, Stratford upon Avon. Golf GTI valued £27,000 stolen.
• 27 Aug. Timbertree Crescent, Cradley Heath. Burglars build up entry but nothing stolen.
• 27 Aug. Defendant Dunn caught after appalling high speed pursue.
• 28 Aug. Bicton Drive, Brierley Hill. BMW four worth £36,000 and £48,000 BMW 520M stolen.
• 28/29 Aug. Brickhouse Road, Rowley Regis. VW Jeta stolen.
• 28/29 Aug. Dale Road, Oldswinford. £50,000 Audi Q7 stolen.
• 1 Sept. Quarry Lane, Halesowen. £35,000 Range Rover stolen.
• Four/Five Sept. The Lawley, Halesowen. £30,000 Audi stolen.
• 9 Sept. Shotgun incident at Cafe Licious, Tattoo Bank Road, Langley.
• 11 Sept. Brown, Gordon and Khan arrested after being caught about to burgle Audi garage at Halesowen.

Their leader —19-year-old Callum Brown — also appalled women with a sawn-off shotgun after a row with other customers in a cafe, a judge heard.

Witness footage of the gang smashing into a police car

Reiss Dunn — one of the foot soldiers — led officers on a horrifying 90mph pursue through 30mph limit residential streets during which he deliberately wrecked one police car and badly bruised another while at the wheel of a stolen car.

The thieves stole more than twenty cars while staging at least sixteen burglaries and attempted break-ins — sometimes committing two on the same night — inbetween April and September 2014.

They drove off in a fleet of top-of-the-range BMWs and Audis worth up to £50,000 each through stealing ignition keys from the home of the proprietor. The gang also had a £5,500 device that programmes car keys for specific vehicles and a lock pick.

Most of the cars were taken to a ‘chop shop’ and cannibalised for spare parts or spirited out of the country while others were used with false plates as ‘run arounds’ by gang members — six of whom were locked up for up to four and a half years each at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday afternoon.

Teams struck at addresses as far afield as Nottingham, Stratford-upon-Avon and Newcastle-under Lyme but the bulk of the break-ins happened in the Black Country, exposed Mr Philip Bradley, prosecuting.

The main players were Brown, Kieran Gordon, aged Nineteen, and 26-year-old Mohammed Khan who organised disposition of the stolen cars, one of which — a £45,500 Audi RS5 — was found on a ramp in a Birmingham ‘chop shop’ with the wheels, doors and other parts already liquidated just hours after being stolen from an address in Yew Street, Merridale.

Kieran Gordon and Conrad Ashe played significant roles in the burglaries while Dunn, Aaron Simpson, aged 26, and 28-year-old Jason Hadley had lesser roles, it was said.

Judge Nicholas Webb said it was a ‘miracle’ that nobody was killed by Dunn, aged 25, during one of the worst cases of dangerous driving he had seen on August twenty seven 2014 when he deliberately drove into two police cars after being cornered outside his home in Dunsdale Road, Erdington, before driving off with an officer still clinging to the stolen Insignia.

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