Thieves caught after double raid on Sunderland's Tecaz site

Joseph Service, 39, and Warren Cassidy, 36, were approached by an employee outside Tecaz on Wednesday, April 14 last year, and asked what they were up to.

They drove off in their van with the items inside when the employee headed to his office to call his boss to check their dodgy explanation, a court heard.

Service, of Stanley Street, Houghton, and Cassidy, of Bowes Court, Newton Hall, near Durham, repeated the offence on Friday, April 30.

Prosecutor Bushra Begum said they took a total of £2,000 of goods which they flogged to a scrapyard for £206.

When arrested after the second offence, Cassidy was found with a knife in his wallet, magistrates in South Tyneside were told.

Of the first crime, Mrs Begum said: “A member of staff heard crashing machine noises coming from the back yard.

“When he went to look at around 1pm, he saw a Transit van being loaded with metal beams. The beams were used by the company as shelving.

“The staff member confronted them, and they replied, ‘The guy’s told us we can take it’.

“He wasn’t sure of that explanation and said that he would have to contact the owner to check.

“He didn’t have a phone to hand and had to go back to the warehouse. While doing so, the van drove off.”

Mrs Begum said the defendants returned, with the second theft of beams not attracting staff attention immediately.

She confirmed Cassidy’s 2.5in-long knife was of a type which folded and locked into the shape and size of a credit card.

The defendants each denied two theft charges but changed their plea to guilty on the day of trial, with a third charge dropped.

Cassidy entered an immediate guilty plea to possession of a bladed article in public.

Robin Ford, defending Service, said his client had been “an active, dishonest drunken criminal” until 2018.

He said Service, who has 44 previous convictions, had then been jailed and turned his life around on release, with his theft offences being ‘blips”

Mr Ford added: “He made a conscious decision that he’d had enough of that life.

“He came out of prison, and he sorted himself out. He has support structures in place.”

Defending Cassidy, who is in employment, Tom Morgan said: “He found the knife at an elderly relative’s address.

“He thought it would be handy, he didn’t think about putting it in his wallet.”

Magistrates jailed Cassidy for 16 weeks for each of his three offences, all to run concurrently and suspended for a year.

He must pay £600 court costs and a £128 victim surcharge and carry out 135 hours of unpaid work.

Jobless Service was handed an 18-month community order, with 19 sessions of the Thinking Skills programme and 32 days on the supportive Stepping Stones scheme.

He must also abide by an 18-week electronically monitored 7pm to 7am curfew. There were no court costs.

Each defendant must pay Tecaz £1,000 compensation.