A ‘PROFESSIONAL handler’ who specialised in trading in high-value stolen trailers has been jailed for dealing in property worth more than £60,000.
Jason Holdsworth pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to 13 charges of handling stolen goods over a 10-year period.
Holdsworth, 30, of Station Lane, Lapworth was jailed for two years and three months.
Prosecutor Blondel Thompson said Holdworth’s offences dated back to 2008 and included handling stolen for Williams trailers.
The cases also included a boat worth around £10,000 stolen from outside a home near Stratford and towed by a van on false number plates to Holdsworth’s yard, where it was found when police raided the premises.
Also at the yard was another boat, worth £4,500, stolen from the owner’s drive in Bromsgrove the previous month.
Holdsworth also dealt in horse trailers including one worth £2,500 stolen from a field in Allimore Lane, Alcester and another worth £3,560 stolen from a yard in Green Lane, near Redditch in January 2018.
Another had been taken from stables in Tardebigge just days before the police raid. All three were recovered, plus a stolen quad bike.
In June 2017 a racing car trailer worth £10,000, was stolen from a home in Birmingham and later sold by Holdsworth at auction in Kent for £4,500.
The police finally got on his trail after he put a for sale advert on the Gumtree website for a car trailer.
The trailer, worth £3,900, had been stolen from Tanworth-in-Arden, and the advert was spotted by the owner who contacted the police.
Another advert, for a stolen £14,500 digger, provided a trail to Holdsworth’s door.
He had agreed a sale for £10,800 but when the buyer checked the digger’s vehicle identification number plate he found it did not match the registration number, so informed the police.
