£120,000 repayment orders on car gang

Gary Swinden and his partner Victoria Laws, from Barnsley, were part of a 14-strong gang headed by Bradford man Matthew Holmes which specialised in stealing car keys from homes across the north of England, taking the cars and selling them on.

In December last year Swinden, of Field Drive, Barnsley, was sentenced to seven years in prison and Laws, of the same address, was given a 52-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

At Leeds Crown Court yesterday, Judge Marson QC ordered that Swinden, 52, should pay back £78,000 or face a further 21-month prison sentence.

Laws was ordered to pay back more than £44,700 or face a further 16-month sentence.

Holmes, of Laceby Close in Thorpe Edge, was said to have benefited by £153,634 from his part in the enterprise but was only ordered to pay back £65. He is currently serving a five-year sentence for his part in the crime.

At the December hearing, gang members admitted charges including conspiring to commit burglary, conspiring to handle stolen goods and conspiring to defraud.

They had been caught by police from all of Yorkshire’s four police forces, who came together to form a car key burglary investigation, known as Operation Yankee.

Holmes was the burglary team leader who would then sell on the stolen vehicles. Swinden and Laws were the facilitators who, through their business Zebra Studios, supplied high-quality cloned licence plates and documentation.

Det Chief Insp Lisa Atkinson said yesterday: “We will continue to target and disrupt organised criminals and force them to pay back their ill-gotten gains.”