JAILED: Thief stole two cars in two days from same woman

A 20-year-old seen at the wheel of three stolen cars during a one-man crime spree has been locked up for three years.

Two of the cars were taken from the same woman on successive days.

The victim was grabbed and dragged from her £20,000 Audi Q5 while getting into the driver’s seat of the parked vehicle in Laburnum Road, Walsall Wood, on January 13, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

After being hurled from the vehicle she clung onto the bodywork until ordered to let go by another man armed with a hammer.

The pair of robbers then drove off in convoy with another vehicle, from which two more of the gang had kept watch.

Less than four hours later police saw Adam Humpage driving the stolen car in Lichfield Road, Bloxwich, and gave chase when he refused to stop, explained Mr David Bennett, prosecuting.

The defendant reached speeds of 90mph on residential streets, forcing two other motorists into emergency stops to avoid ‘catastrophic’ crashes and losing his pursuers as he sped down Harden Road, Walsall.

The Audi was found abandoned nearby.

The next day the victim’s second car – a Vauxhall Zafira – was stolen from Spring Lane, Willenhall.

A key for it had been taken with the Audi, said Mr Bennett.

Less than 24 hours later three people escaped with a mobile phone, generator, cash, food and drink from a sandwich van at the Britannia Enterprise Park in Lichfield.

They fled in the stolen Zafira, which was abandoned in Walsall Wood with the defendant’s mobile phone lying alongside it.

Then on January 18 a police officer looking through briefing documents saw a photograph of Humpage and recognised him as the man he had seen driving the stolen Audi five days earlier.

Almost six weeks later police were alerted to a man acting suspiciously in a Ford Transit with false plates.

Officers chased and caught the vehicle, which was being driven by the defendant and had been stolen ten days earlier.

Mr Stephen Cadwaladr, defending, said: “This was all done on impulse. He went on an offending spree while homeless and mentally ill.”

Humpage, of Wordsworth Road, Willenhall - who had previous convictions involving 24 offences - admitted three cases of handling stolen vehicles, dangerous driving and theft from the sandwich van.

He was ordered to be detained in a Young Offenders Institution and banned from driving for three years on release by Judge Barry Berlin, who told him: "Your driving on busy roads was appalling. It is a miracle that nobody was killed."