Locker Room Thief Who Stole BMW Jailed

A locker room thief who nicked a man's car keys from a gym and drove off in his high-spec BMW which was parked outside has been jailed for eight months. James Ratcliffe, 27, targeted customers while they worked out at The Peak leisure centre in Stirling, the city's sheriff court was told. On a series of occasions in the run-up to Christmas he forced open lockers in the uni-sex changing rooms and stole cash, keys and clothing. He was caught after his most daring heist, on December 15th, when he stole all the clothes and car keys from the BMW owner. Lindsey Brooks, prosecuting, said lockers at The Peak had a pound-in-the-slot mechanism, which allowed leisure centre users to secure their possessions with a key. On December 15th, the BMW owner, who was not named, returned to find that his locker had been forced but not broken, and his clothing, worth £299, was all gone, as well as his house and car keys. In the locker instead was a water bottle, which had not been there before. When the victim went outside, he found his car, a BMW 318i, was also gone. Mrs Brooks said that to make matters worse, the car was not fully paid off, and there was still £15,000 finance outstanding on it. Mrs Brooks said: "The water bottle was retained by the police. There's CCTV in the leisure centre and there was an amount of footage to be checked. "There was an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) check put out on the vehicle in addition to that." Ratcliffe was identified from the CCTV as having been in the locker room and further checks showed that locations, where his mobile phone had been used and where the car was picked up by the ANPR system, coincided. Ratcliffe was interviewed, made no comment, and was arrested. The car was eventually recovered, somewhere in the Highlands. Ratcliffe, of Stirling, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to stealing the car and clothes from The Peak on December 15th, and £153 in cash together with more car keys on earlier dates.

Sentence had been deferred for background reports. Kevin Cassidy, defending, said the reports revealed Ratcliffe needed treatment to address a drug habit. He said: "He did not have the easiest of childhoods, and has a significant and ongoing problem with abuse of substances." The court heard that at the the time of his arrest, Ratcliffe was on early release from a pervious sentence, with 126 days left to run. Sheriff Wyllie Robertson ordered that the unexpired portion of the previous sentence and the new sentence of eight months should be served consecutively. He said: "This was a planned and systematic operation and involved the theft of a high-specification motor vehicle, which was your particular intention, as noted in the social work report."