Leeds burglars captured by their own CCTV camera

Police found CCTV footage of criminals Craig Rayner, Ben Cooper, Steven Franks and Benjamin Turnbull returning from a jewellery raid on a camera at Rayner’s home in Armley.

The four were seen getting out of a car wearing latex gloves and the carrying the jewellery. One was also captured putting empty boxes into a wheelie bin outside the property.

Footage from earlier the same morning showed the gang setting off to carry out the raid in North Yorkshire.

Olivia Checa-Dover, prosecuting at Leeds Crown Court, said the men targeted a home in Long Marston on September 15 last year, taking £3,400 worth of jewellery along with a Nintendo Wii, an iPod, a laptop, binoculars and a camera.

The four men were arrested at midday the same day after police stopped their car and found a large pile of gold jewellery in the footwell. Officers then viewed the footage from the camera outside Rayner’s home.

It showed the men returning at 11.40am. Franks, 26, was driving the Peugeot and Rayner, 26, was in the passenger seat. Turnbull, 22, wearing black gloves, and Cooper, 22, wearing latex gloves, got out of the vehicle.

The court heard that the men, all of Leeds, had a long history of offences between them including house burglary, car crime and violence.

They all admitted burglary and Franks also admitted possession of cocaine with intent to supply. He was jailed for four years.

Cooper received a two-and-a-half year sentence, Turnbull and Rayner were jailed for two years and three months.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “They were no doubt on their way to sell the loot when the police stopped them.”