Mini thief had been jailed before
One of the Mini thieves sentenced two weeks ago has been to prison before for almost identical crimes and had been using far more eBay shops than police revealed, CCW has now discovered.
Stephen Fiddimore, 36, is starting a three-and-a-half year sentence for his part in stealing and breaking up 13 Minis ( CCW 20 April). It has now come to light that in 2012 Fiddimore, then known as David Brown, was sentenced to four-anda-half years for stealing cars worth around £700,000. Along with his brother he was part of the ‘Fiddimore Gang’ who police suspect stole over 50 cars in the South East, several of them classic Minis. The car parts were then sold on eBay. In the latest case, police revealed that Fiddimore used two eBay stores, sns_salvage and s_wrks. However, CCW has found that Fiddimore also used mpi_mini_parts, s_works_ garages and croker_coach_tours (the latter a reference to The Italian Job).
All the eBay stores are now closed, though cached information reveals that 730 transactions were completed on just the sns_salvage store in less than a year. .
Fiddimore’s eBay customer rating was 92%, suggesting the majority of buyers were happy with his service. A spokesman for eBay says the company cannot comment on individual cases.