TWO burgling bikers have been jailed for a series of house raids in North, West and East Yorkshire.

Connor Walker, 21, and Darryl Lynch, 18, used stolen scooters to reach their targets on a four-day crime wave across the Vale of York.

Their victims included elderly people as they stole cash, tools and jewellery and caused thousands of pounds of damage to homes and vehicles.

The crime wave ended when one of their victims returned home to find them burgling his home in Sherburn-in-Elmet. They ran off as he ran 999.

North Yorkshire police dogs and officers tracked down Lynch to where he was hiding under a tarpaulin in a Wendy house and text messages on his phone led West Yorkshire police officers to Lynch.

Four days earlier, a North Yorkshire police volunteer had taken dash-cam footage of a scooter driver passing a crash helmet through the driver's window of a Mitsubishi Shogun stolen minutes earlier in Pollington, East Yorkshire.

Walker, of South Elmsall and Lynch, of Knottingley, both admitted conspiracy to burgle at Leeds Crown Court.

Watch CCTV of their crimes here.

Police investigations by both forces revealed they had committed four burglaries in West Yorkshire, three in North Yorkshire and one in Humberside between November 5 and November 8, 2018.

Walker was jailed for four and a half years and Lynch was jailed for three years, plus three years and two months for unrelated offences of robbery and assaulting a police officer.

Investigating officer and burglary co-ordinator of North Yorkshire Police Dave Pegg said: ‘This was a fantastic collective effort across both forces as we relentlessly pursued the investigation and used all our powers to prove that Walker and Lynch were linked to the series of burglaries across the three counties.

"The work of both the North Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Police investigators, forensic officers, intelligence officers, the dog section, neighbourhood and response officers, and police volunteers all played a valuable role in catching both Walker and Lynch and securing the evidence to prosecute them.

"Hopefully, the significant sentence imposed today will bring some satisfaction to the victims and send a clear message to criminals who commit crime across our counties that police forces can, and will, work together to bring offenders to justice."