A LOWER Gornal man who jointly rented a lock-up that contained three stolen cars worth nearly £50,000 has been jailed for two years.

Gregory Taylor, aged 30, of Spills Meadow, and Tony Cook, aged 35, of Stroud Avenue, Willenhall, both admitted three charges of handling stolen property.

Wolverhampton Crown was told that a W Golf, stolen from a pizza delivery driver in Dudley, had a tracker device, which led police to the lock up in Short Heath, Willenhall.

On arrival, they found one of the vehicles had been partly dismantled and the serial numbers on the chassis and other parts had been scratched off but the other two vehicles were intact.

There was no-one present inside the lock-up but inquiries revealed it had been rented by Taylor and Cook just a month earlier.

Officers also discovered a £30,000 Audi that had been taken in a car key burglary in the Wolverhampton area and a £15,000 Skoda that was stolen from Alastair Norman while he was out of the car opening up the gate at the Dudley Rifle Club.

The court was told that inside the Skoda was a .22 rifle belonging to Mr Norman and the theft cost him the chance of representing Great Britain at a shooting competition.

He had used the rifle for 40 years and it had not been recovered by investigating police officers, added Richard Davenport, prosecuting.

Recorder Barry Berlin also jailed Cook for two years and told both men there was no evidence they had been involved in the theft of the vehicles or that it was stealing to order.

But he added, “Those who stole or robbed the cars must have known where to take them. This was a professional, commercial car ringing operation.”