CCTV footage showed Steven Regan, 34, driving a stolen digger through the Nottinghamshire village of Church Warsop, near Mansfield – at speeds of up to 20 miles an hour.
As he tried to escape from police, he ploughed through hedgerows into a park, and right through a cemetery, smashing several headstones.
A ‘man possessed’
Officers eventually managed to catch up with him after the JCB ground to halt with a flat tyre, but not before he’d caused an estimated £15,000 of damage. The judge at Nottingham Crown Court told Regan he’d behaved like a “man possessed” with little defence for his actions.
He said the theft had been part of a wider operation, where Regan was paid to steal vehicles and deliver them to others, adding “You were part and parcel of what was quite clearly a sophisticated act of criminality by others”. But he’d refused to tell police who’d been paying him.
Guilty plea
Regan admitted all the charges, and to stealing 16 other vehicles in the year leading up to the wrecking spree. As well as the jail sentence, he was also disqualified from driving for five years.
The chief crown prosecutor in East Midlands, Judith Walker, said it had been an unusual case, which had been aggravated by Regan’s reckless driving.
The long prison sentence, she said, reflected the seriousness of his actions, including the damage to gravestones which had caused families distress and anguish.