A SERIAL criminal who carried out two large-scale raids in the same night on commercial premises near York has been jailed.

Aaron John Herbert had the “audacity” to wear one of the clothing items he and his accomplices stole as they systematically filled a car twice with items from the warehouse, York Crown Court heard.

Michael Cahill, prosecuting, said in total the gang got away with clothing worth £10,000.

The car had been stolen two nights earlier from a Harrogate house.

The gang also stole a Mini which had been parked in the warehouse, before closing the warehouse doors and making it look as if everything was normal.

But the Stockton-on-the-Forest warehouse’s CCTV had captured their actions and Herbert was arrested within days.

“It has to be immediate custody for a commercial burglary on this scale, using a stolen car,” Judge Simon Hickey told Herbert.

The burglaries had been planned and had involved at least four people.

“You had the audacity to wear one of the coats stolen from the victim,” he said.

Herbert, 49, of Deane Place, Harrogate, pleaded guilty to two burglaries, taking a car without the owner’s consent, driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance.

He was jailed for two years and banned from driving for three years.

Mr Cahill said the Volkswagen used by the gang was stolen overnight between December 9 and 10 by someone who had broken into the Harrogate house and stolen its keys.

At 10.50pm on December 11, CCTV filmed the car with Herbert in the passenger seat and another man driving  as it arrived at the warehouse. Two more people arrived on foot. One member of the gang was a woman.

The raiders broke into the warehouse and made repeated trips inside, coming out with clothing which they loaded into the car until it was full. Herbert drove the car off at 11.20pm with one accomplice and the other two left on foot.

In the early hours of December 12, Herbert arrived back in the car with an accomplice and the two again filled the car before driving both it and the Mini off, said Mr Cahill.

Police identified Herbert from the CCTV and he was arrested on December 15.

He had more than 80 previous convictions including many for burglary, theft and motoring crimes.

For him, Harry Crowson said he was in danger of becoming institutionalised in prison. He had been a heroin addict for “many, many years”.

In recent years, he had been in and out of prison and because of the pandemic had been released without support and without accommodation.

But following his most recent release, he had got stable accommodation and managed to form a relationship.