A TRAVELLING burglar has been jailed for the second time in two years for targeting North Yorkshire farms.

Ross Sutcliffe, 31, was part of a balaclava-wearing gang who broke into a farm shop and farm outbuildings west of York and stole vehicles and other items worth more than £15,000, said Rob Galley, prosecuting.

After a high-speed chase, police caught him after seeing steam rising from undergrowth where he was trying to hide, the city's crown court heard.

He was on parole having been released partway through a 32-month prison sentence passed last year for three burglaries of farms between Knaresborough and Wetherby .

In February 2020, York Crown Court heard how he was caught hiding up a tree after a police helicopter helped officers track him down.

He has a long criminal record, starting with burglary when he was 16 years old.

Sutcliffe, of Summerfield Road, Bradford, pleaded guilty to burglary and being carried in a vehicle taken without the owner's consent, both committed on September 15 this year.

"You are a travelling burglar," Judge Simon Hickey told him.

He jailed Sutcliffe for 42 months, saying the stolen items were a "significant loss to the owner".

Mr Galley said the gang of three used an Isuzu pick-up truck stolen some days earlier when they travelled into North Yorkshire around midnight on the night of September 13 and 15.

Dressed in balaclavas and dark clothing and carrying burglary tools, they broke into the Pool Bridge Farm Farm Shop and nearby outbuildings in Nun Monkton.

They took a horsebox trailer, car, quad bike, tools, generator, catalytic converter, cash from the shop till and meat.

Then they headed back towards West Yorkshire in different groups. Sutcliffe and one other man was in the pickup which had false number plates.

The judge said police were waiting for them at the A1/A59 junction

The pickup made off at speed on seeing police.

It sped at 60mph through 40mph zones before breaking down a farm gate and driving into a field.

There they made off on foot, but Sutcliffe was caught.

For Sutcliffe, Benjamin Bell said his only mitigation was his guilty plea.

On January 15, 2020, Sutcliffe was again part of a three-man gang wearing balaclavas that broke into three farms.

York Crown Court heard in February 2020 that they set off a burglar alarm in one of the three farms they raided and a farmer hearing it, investigated and saw them making off.

He alerted police who spotted the gang on the A1(M) near Wetherby. A National Police Air Service helicopter was scrambled to help officers on the ground. It enabled them to find Sutcliffe with another raider in a tree.