These are some of the faces of a "ruthless" gang who stole high-performance cars and burgled homes across Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands as part of a crime spree worth more than £1 million. The four men carried out their crimes while their victims were asleep, burgling 41 homes across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Rutland and stealing cars such as Audis, Mercedes and BMWs.
The cars they stole were worth a total of £1,153,500 and a number of them, collectively worth £373,000, are still missing - they took them by stealing car keys from inside their victim's homes. The men appeared at Leicester Crown Court on Friday, March 25 to be sentenced, having pleaded guilty to involvement in the conspiracy to commit the burglaries between June and October, 2019.
The gang included Chay Bowskill, who was already serving a sentence for kidnapping his former girlfriend, Angel Lynn. He was given an additional four years for his role in the plot. The court heard Bowskill, 20, of Syston, worked with 18-year-old Josh Healy, of Laurel Close, Mountsorrel, Barry Kew Moss 22, and 19-year-old Travis Hindmarsh, both of no fixed address, Leicestershire Live reports.
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Healy and Hindmarsh, both juveniles at the time of the offending, were each sentenced to four years detention. Kew Moss was jailed for six years and three months. Prosecutor Christopher Jeyes told Friday's hearing many of the victims woke the next day to find their vehicles were missing from outside their homes.
About 10 homes were burgled in the Loughborough area, with several more in Leicester. Mr Jeyes said: "Some of the stolen vehicles were used in subsequent offences, with registration plates changed."
He said others were targeted in Coalville, Whitwick, Cossington, Sileby, Markfield, Shepshed, Wymeswold, Tur Langton, Tilton on the Hill, Great Bowden, Fleckney, Syston, Queniborough, Kibworth, Thistleton [Rutland], as well as Wysall, Keyworth and East Leake, in Nottinghamshire.
Michael Auty QC said: "These vehicles were expressly targeted because of their prestige nature, high performance and intrinsic high value. "It was a serious and determined episode of criminality in which each of you played an active part. To have a gang come to their home in the dead of night, armed with a crowbar or other items, must have resulted in very real, substantial and possibly life-lasting, distress.
"What you did affected their enjoyment of life and their homes and most important of all, their sense of security in the one place they're entitled to feel the most safe and secure. That says nothing in terms of monetary loss and inconvenience."
Bowskill was convicted by a jury, in an unrelated trial, of kidnapping his then 19-year-old girlfriend, Angel Lynn, who suffered permanent brain damage in a fall from the van she was abducted in back in September 2020. He was also convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour towards Angel and perverting the course of justice, for which he was jailed for a total of seven-and-a-half years.
The sentence was referred to London's High Court for an 'unduly lenient' review and increased to 12 years, on Wednesday March 23. The two other burglary conspirators, who have admitted their involvement and await sentencing, are Oliver Thomas Read, 25 and Aurel Sadiki, 24, both of no fixed address.
Recorder Auty said he took into account that Healy was 15-years-old at the time of the conspiracy. Hindmarsh was then 16 and Bowskill was 18. Kew Moss, aged 20 at the time, is currently serving a three year and nine month sentence for some of the burglaries that formed part of the same conspiracy.
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