£55k chop-shop boss spared jail
‘You didn’t play a leading role’
AMECHANIC who was caught running a £55,000 ‘chop shop’ has been spared jail.
Adam Greenwood’s unit at Victoria Mill on Victoria Street in Accrington was raided by police after they received an anonymous tip-off that stolen vehicles were being broken down into parts.
Officers recovered two stolen Audi’s and they were identified from their VIN numbers, Burnley Crown Court heard.
CCTV footage recovered from the area showed the vehicles arriving at the mill and being stripped of their number plates.
Prosecutor Colette Renton told the court that police found a number of invoices and consignment notices.
Parts belonging to other vehicles worth £15,000 were also found in other units rented under Greenwood’s name, however officers could not prove they were stolen, the court heard.
Miss Renton said a Seat Leon which was registered and insured to Greenwood was being fitted with stolen parts to ‘make it roadworthy’.
She said: “This is an operation where parts were taken from stolen vehicles and replaced and sold to put into vehicles.”
Miss Renton said the total value of the stolen car parts were £55,420.
Greenwood, 29, of White Ash Lane, Oswaldtwistle, pleaded guilty to four counts of handling stolen goods.
He was given an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for two years with 200 hours unpaid work, a three-month curfew and ordered to pay £500 costs.
Judge Simon Medland QC said it was a ‘semi-professional’ operation and did ‘not have the hallmarks of being a well-polished and smooth running process’.
Sentencing, he said: “You were in the process of making yourself available to thieves in order to liquidate the process of their crime so it could be turned into a valuable item, namely spare parts for cars.
“You were not the originator in this scheme and you didn’t play, by any stretch of the imagination, a leading role in it.
“On the other hand as has so often been said in the past if it weren’t for people who received and handled stolen goods then thieves would find their task a great deal more difficult.
Speaking after the hearing, PC Neil Ogden told the Observer: “I welcome today’s sentence and hope it sends out a clear message that this type of activity has no place in Lancashire.”