The final member of a three-strong burglary gang which mainly targeted elderly people’s homes while they were away on holiday has been spared immediate custody. A judge told Danielle Ryde he was satisfied she had been “coerced and controlled” by the ringleader Darren Cox to drive him to 15 of the 21 break-ins during the spree across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lancashire.
When he jailed Cox and accomplice Declan Prosser, last summer, Judge James Sampson told the 42-year-old grandmother he would “test” her to stay out of trouble and to co-operate with whatever requirements the probation service gave her until Friday, January 3.
Now she has proven both, he handed her a 20-month jail sentence, suspended for 21 months. The judge said: “I am going to sentence you on the basis that what you did was entirely out of character for you.
“You have some old and irrelevant precious convictions and I am going to disregard those. I am entirely satisfied you were controlled and coerced by Cox and so it seems to me it is an appropriate case for a suspended sentence order.”
At a sentencing hearing in July, the same court heard how during the spate of break-ins, masked Darren Cox would drill holes in window frames and ransack the properties for jewellery worth tens of thousands of pounds.
On 15 of the 21 occasions he was driven to and from the scene by Ryde and on eight of those, Prosser was paid to be the group’s lookout. Phillip Plant, prosecuting, said the burglaries all took place between May and October, 2021. He said they happened in Ilkeston, Smalley, Heanor, Selston, Newthorpe, Underwood, Edwinstowe, Calverton, Southwell, Farnsfield and the last three all happened in Poulton-Le-Fylde, near Blackpool, Lancashire. The prosecutor said: “Ryde accepted that from May to July her role was subordinate to Cox in that she was driving him to the burglaries and at first she was not aware what she was driving him to.
“Prosser admitted to playing a role in eight of the burglaries on two nights and his role was as a lookout for which he was being paid £200 per night. On each occasion the modus operandi (method of operation) was largely the same.
“They would drill holes to gain entry to the properties, all of the burglaries took place at night, elderly people were targeted and in cases the homes were unoccupied while the owners were out or away on holiday. One exception was a burglary in Selston where the victims disturbed the break-in.”
Mr Plant said the value of jewels that were taken in some of the break-ins went into the thousands and in some cases included gems of sentimental value to the owners.
The prosecutor said: “When Cox was arrested there was a ski mask and a balaclava in the car and DNA linked him to a number of the offences.”
All three defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary. Forty-eight-year-old Cox, formerly of Meden Crescent, Sutton-in-Ashfield and now of HMP Oakwood, in Staffordshire, was sent to prison for five years and four months,
He has 17 convictions for 34 offences including many burglaries dating back to 1994.
Prosser, 23, of Welbeck Street, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, has 12 previous convictions for 25 offences and he was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Sentencing the gang, Judge James Sampson said: “It almost goes without saying that dwelling house burglary is a gravely serious crime. It is devastating for the victims who feel violated and may never feel safe again in their own homes.”
As part of her suspended sentence order, the judge ordered Ryde, of Park Road, to attend 20 rehabilitation sessions with the probation service and to wear an alcohol monitoring tag for 120 days.