Antiques dealer thief gets 3 yrs

He plundered £230k worth of jewellery

AN ANTIQUES dealer who smashed his way into another shop and stole £230,000 of jewellery and watches was jailed for three years yesterday.

Thomas Reid, 48, broke into Malcolm’s Antiques in Guardbridge, near St Andrews, Fife, and forced open seven glass display cabinets. He snatched a large quantity of valuable jewellery, including rings, watches and earrings in the raid in July last year.

The shop’s CCTV showed a man breaking in.

His face was obscured but he was wearing a camouflage jacket and his silver car was traced on CCTV travelling through Fife and on to Dundee. It stopped at a petrol station, where the registration plate was revealed.

A search of Reid’s home in Fife, and his car revealed a crowbar, a torch and other items used in the theft, along with the camouflage jacket.

Thousands of pounds worth of the stolen jewellery was also found.

Much of the recovered loot was easily recognised, Dundee Sheriff Court was told. But some items had been “broken down” in order to sell on.

The court heard that Reid had been selling jewellery online and he had a storage container in the Dryburgh area of Dundee.

Mike Short, defending, said that Reid had been “trying to save” his own struggling business.

But the solicitor admitted: “If he has to behave like this to save the business, it’s not savable.”

Reid – originally from Glasgow, whose address was given on court papers as Perth Prison – admitted carrying out the robbery.

He was previously jailed for 10 years for attempting to murder his cousin Francis Boyle, then 34, in Govan, Glasgow, in 2007.

Imposing the jail term for the raid, Sheriff Alastair Carmichael told Reid he had to take into account the value of goods stolen, adding: “There is also an element of professionalism about the way you did it.”