Bag left in coffee shop linked man to £1.4m car thefts plot

CONSPIRACY HAD AUTOMATIC PROGRAMMERS TO MAKE KEYS WORK WITH STOLEN VEHICLES

- By OWEN EVANS and ADAM EVERETT

A CAR thief's role in a £1.4m criminal plot unravelled after he left his bag in a coffee shop at a North Wales holiday park.

When staff at the Lyons Robin Hood Holiday Park in Rhyl checked the bag, it contained "numerous car keys and some cannabis" so police were called.

It led to Curtis Morrison being linked to a conspiracy to steal 82 cars over a six-month period before having the "high value" vehicles sold off for parts after they were dismantled at "chop shops" across Merseyside.

His accomplices Sean Fagan and Daniel Johnston were caught following two separate car crashes with one, a taxi driver turned drug dealer, being found "sweating and out of breath" after he unsuccessfully tried to run from the scene of the crime.

Liverpool Crown Court heard on Thursday that the three defendants were "part of a gang of professional car thieves" who were "responsible for stealing high value keyless motor cars from residential addresses" between April and October 2022.

A total of 82 vehicles, valued at £1.4m, were taken from driveways of homes "mainly in Liverpool", as well as Southport, St Helens, Widnes and the Wirral and five in the Prestatyn area.

Tom Challinor, prosecuting, said their criminality was "a case of stealing goods to order" using automatic key programmers, devices used legitimately by locksmiths which had "fallen into the hands of the defendants".

Having forced the doors of the cars and gained access to their onboard computers, these gadgets would enable the offenders to programme blank keys to become compatible with the vehicles they intended to steal.

They could then simply drive away with the stolen goods without having to get hold of the real keys. Mr Challinor added: "In many cases, the vehicles ended up in chop shops where a mechanic would strip the vehicles down for their valuable parts to be sold on the black market in such a condition they were not traceable."