A gang of mountain bike thieves who stole machines worth more than £20,000 in the Lake District was sentenced to a total of more than 15 years in jail.
The four, from Liverpool, made trips to the national park and cut the locks securing the mountain bikes to parked vehicles.
Three separate spates of thefts of high-performance bikes took place in November and December last year.
Four men were convicted and sent to jail on Thursday.
Tony Jones, 26, and Wayne Brookes, 28, were sent to prison for three years and nine months each; their accomplice Sean Whitehead, 34, received a three-year sentence, and Andrew Whitehead, 41, was jailed for three years nine months, with an additional 15 months for a burglary from 1999.
Detective Constable Duncan Helmn of Cumbria Constabulary said: “The four men travelled to Cumbria from Liverpool in Tony Jones’s white Transit van.
“They targeted stationary vehicles which carried the mountain bikes. The offenders cut the bikes from the vehicles and placed them in the van before quickly taking them back to Liverpool.
“On 1 December police from Kendal and Windermere arrested the men in the white van, just after they had stolen two bikes from Grasmere.
“Cumbria is a very popular location for cyclists and tourists and remains one of the safest places in the country to live and visit.
“These offences were isolated incidents with the suspects from out of the area. They rightly received lengthy custodial sentences for their part in these crimes.”
Pete
11 June 2013This is great, finally catching some of these scum. BUT they will no doubt be out of prison in no time and stealing more of our pride and joy, should make prisons so harsh that criminals are scared to death of going there. No TV, exercise, books.... bread and water to drink etc.... they should have no 'human rights' once they are found guilty of a crime.
timbo
11 June 2013Criminals like these are scumbags, but they are still human.
Ian
11 June 2013Give up the bikes and walk.
Jo
11 June 2013There are a few chromosomes missing from this bunch....Dear me, looks like Hillbilly junction
David Whitehead
11 June 2013surprised they didn't just nick the wheels coming from Liverpool
Up the hamners
13 June 2013Lol hillbillys ffs dirty scum bags need
Flogging bring back tomato chucking lol
IAN LONG
16 June 2013DIRTY SCRUFFY SCOUSERS AGAIN. BET THEY ARE FROM HUYTON!!!! THEY ALL LOOK LIKE HEROIN USERS, THATS WHY THEY HAVE TO ROB EXSPENSIVE THINGS
Just saying
28 June 2013We're not scruffy scousers at all we are scouse and we are proud don't like it tuff cause we don't care anyway just saying
Lakeside
28 June 2013I bet you wouldn't say dirty scruffy scousers to there
Face though would you hiding behind your comments saddo
Stevie78
28 June 2013David are you related to the whiteheads in the above picture i wonder
Spouse
27 August 2013Well dun lads keep it spouse
Spouse
27 August 2013Well dun lads keep it scouse
Davvy Crocket
23 September 2013Considering that recovering IP addresses (and therefore home addresses) from forum and message posts is very simple for anyone using widely available software these days (even simply from a user name and posting date), having to "make comments like these to people's faces" is not such a far fetched idea!