Allotment thief steals kayak as getaway vehicle

A burglar has been jailed for 12 months after breaking into an allotment, stealing two sickles, and making off in a kayak.

 

38-year-old Neil Coveney entered the allotment gardens in Leamington at around 6.30 am on June 22, and took the sickles from a shed before leaping into a kayak he found on-site and setting off along a canal.

 

Prosecutor Amrisha Parathalingam said that a neighbouring allotment holder received a notification on his smartphone from a motion-activated camera and could see the intruder. Upon arrival at the allotments, he noticed an allotment holder's shed had been broken into and then saw Coveney paddling along the river in a kayak he had stolen from outside the shed.

 

He alerted the allotment-holder, who went to confront him, but he was brandishing two sickles so she got back into her car.

 

Police found Coveney, of Grenfell Close, Leamington Warwickshire, a short distance away in the stolen vessel, wearing a life jacket and armed with both the bladed tools.

 

Coveney pleaded guilty to burglary, theft, and two charges of possessing bladed articles, and received a 12-month sentence at Warwick Crown Court on September 30. He also admitted assaulting a police officer for which he was on bail at the time of the burglary.

 

The Johnson Partnership

Derby Crime Solicitors