A FORMER Coventry man who took part in a well-planned raid on a Balsall Common house before immediately carrying on to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter to sell the £30,000 haul was traced through his car.
And Adam McCarthy, who a judge observed was ‘not very good at crime,’ pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the burglary.
McCarthy (36) who had previously lived in Coundon, Coventry, but now of Goldfinch Close, Bicester, Oxfordshire, was jailed for three years and four months.
Prosecutor Mohammed Hafeez said that at lunchtime on August 20 last year a woman left her home in Meeting House Lane, Balsall Common, for a couple of hours.
“She returned at 3.30 to find the rear garden door had been forced open and an untidy search carried out, with everything turned upside-down.”
A large quantity of Asian jewellery worth around £30,000 had been stolen, together with an i-Pad, other electrical items, cash and a distinctive PE bag.
When the police subsequently checked CCTV recordings, they noticed a Ford Fiesta loitering in the area – and two men going towards it, with one of them carrying the PE bag.
The car was registered to McCarthy, who Mr Hafeez said had previously lived in Coventry before moving to Oxfordshire, and he was arrested.
ANPR cameras along the route showed the Fiesta had been driven from Bicester to Coventry and then to Balsall Common, where CCTV recordings indicated a team of three, with one person staying in the car.
Following the raid, they drove to the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, after a call had been made to a shop there, before returning to Bicester.
Mr Hafeez said McCarthy had ‘a shocking record’ which included burglaries, robbery, and a firearms offence for which he had been jailed for five years at Leicester Crown Court in 2015.
And Judge Peter Cooke commented: “He’s really not very good at crime, and ought to think about something else in the future.”
Pointing out that more than £3,000 in cash was found at McCarthy’s home when he was arrested, Mr Hafeez asked for a further hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act to take place following an investigation into McCarthy’s assets.
Derek Johashen, defending, said: “His first words today were to indicate he would enter a guilty plea.
“What he says has prompted him to enter his plea is that he does not want any members of the family who were the victims of his crime to have to come to court or have to wait for the outcome.”
Jailing McCarthy, Judge Cooke told him: “You have today pleaded guilty to this very serious offence of burglary, committed many, many miles from your address in Bicester.“You committed it because it was expected there would be a large haul of Asian jewellery, and that proved to be the case.
“The distance you travelled to this house, and the movement straight from there to the Jewellery Quarter with a view to selling the items, are indications of a carefully-planned exercise.”
