Published date: 21 October 2015 |
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HIGH-value bicycles stolen in the south of England were sold on eBay by a Polish couple living in Wrexham.
A judge yesterday warned that bicycle thefts in the UK had reached epidemic proportions.
The case was described as a sophisticated operation where the bicycles were disguised and then sold within weeks of being stolen from people’s garden sheds, from outside shops or from where commuters had left them in London, Suffolk and Sussex.
Patryke Pawel Pudlo, 27, would travel to London regularly to pick them up.
He and his partner, Urszula Barbara Skotnicka, both of Baron’s Road, Wrexham, would pretend they were the owners when buyers picked up the bikes, Anna Pope, prosecuting, told Mold Crown Court.
The couple were caught thanks to an undercover police officer, who bought one of the bicycles online.
Miss Pope said it was a sophisticated and organised operation where parts such as wheels had been changed on some bikes so the owners would not recognise them.
Pudlo pleaded guilty to 10 charges of handling stolen goods, included a Specialized Roubiax bike valued at £2,000, a Pearson Lighter than Air model valued at £3,000 and a Storck Fenomalist cycle frame estimated to be worth £2,400.
He received a 21-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 300 hours’ unpaid work.
Skotnika denied five charges of handling stolen goods, but was convicted at an earlier trial.
She received a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, with 200 hours’ unpaid work.
They must pay compensation of £4,160.
The court heard bicycles to the value of £20,000 were said to have passed through their hands and four were recovered by police who searched their home in June of last year.
Judge Niclas Parry said the case involved handling of many high value, stolen bicycles, over a 12-month period.
He said: “Cycling in this country has probably never been so popular. There can hardly be a time when so many people have invested so heavily in bicycles.
“But it has coincided with a time when bicycle thefts are reaching epidemic proportions in this country.”
He told the defendants they had made the thefts of the bicycles worthwhile.
“This was professional theft and you were close to the original offender,” he told Pudlo.
”By your own admission it was greed, not financial need.”
Skotnica had gone into it “with her eyes wide open” and would help her partner in the ongoing sale of the bicycles, meeting customers when he was in work, accepting the money and issuing the receipts.
The many blank receipts found in the house indicated what was going on, Judge Parry said.
He accepted she had a lesser role under the influence of her partner but she had been foolish enough to have a trial in the face of overwhelming evidence.
The judge took into account Pudlo’s guilty plea and he was impressed by the financial support he gave his sister back home in Poland.
She was gravely ill and her continued treatment depended to an extent on the monthly financial support he was providing.
Mark Conner and Ceri Evans, defending, said it was accepted the offences passed the custody threshold, but urged suspended sentences because of the devastating consequences of custody.
They both had a good work ethic and otherwise led blameless lives. They were full of remorse and were clearly well thought of by their employers, Mr Conner said.
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