POLICE caught a motorist towing a stolen caravan before its owners knew thieves had taken it, York Crown Court heard.

Lucy Brown, prosecuting, said the caravan owners had secured it with a wheel lock and padlocked the entrance to their Tadcaster drive where the vehicle was parked on June 11, 2019.

A thief with a blow torch broke the locks and stole it overnight while they slept.

But before they got up the next morning at 7.30am and saw the £15,000 caravan was missing, police had found it.

South Yorkshire officers spotted Jamie Wilson, 38, at the wheel of a car towing it 30 miles away in Doncaster at 2am on June 12.

They stopped him because he didn’t have rear lights and because of the speed at which he was travelling.

He didn’t have an MOT certificate and wasn’t insured.

Inside the caravan was a gas canister and a blow torch.

Wilson claimed he had been asked to pick up the caravan from a layby.

For him, Ed Moss said Wilson wanted to be jailed as he feared his drug habit would kill him unless he was kept away from drugs.

Judge Simon Hickey said he would have jailed Wilson regardless of the defendant’s wishes.

“You must have been very close to the source of theft,” he said.

He jailed him for 10 months.

Wilson, of Straight Lane, Skelbrooke, Doncaster, pleaded guilty to having criminal property. The prosecution accepted his pleas of not guilty to theft of the caravan and going equipped for theft.

Ms Brown said the thief had damaged the wheel which had had the wheel lock on it. The caravan had been returned to its owners.