Fraudster Leon Sherratt jailed after targeting Great Sankey cars

Leon Sherratt was behind a crime wave in the Great Sankey area, targeting parked cars with a view to stealing their contents.

The 37-year-old appeared to be sentenced at Chester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after admitting three counts of vehicle interference, two of fraud by false representation and one of theft from a motor vehicle.

In doing so, he was also found to have failed to comply with the requirements of his post-custodial supervision order.

The court heard how all the offences occurred on April 18 this year, with police reporting that a number of vehicles were targeted by a thief.

Among the cars interfered with was two separate Volkswagen Tiguans and a Toyota Yaris with a view to theft.

From one of those vehicles, the defendant managed to get his hands on a wallet and bank cards, which he then used to buy items.

The same day it was stolen, the pilfered cards were used in shops to obtain groceries and tobacco, as well as to play the lottery.

Magistrates sentenced Sherratt, of Whitecross Road in Whitecross, to 18 weeks in prison and ordered him to pay compensation of £200.

He was caught on CCTV targetting parked cars

In its reasoning for imprisonment, the court stated that the offences were ‘so serious’ and because the defendant has a ‘flagrant disregard for people and their property’.

Magistrates also stated that the new offences were committed within weeks of Sherratt being released from his last custodial sentence, and while he was on post sentence supervision.

This came after he was jailed for five weeks on March 16 after stealing power tools, sunglasses, a jacket and hair wax from a vehicle three days earlier.

Magistrates added that the offences were aggravated by the defendant’s record of previous offending.

No stranger to the courts, Sherratt was previously locked up for two years in 2011 after stabbing a woman whom he suspected of stealing his cocaine.

The victim suffered three wounds around 1cm deep to the left-hand side of her back, having been attacked with a five-inch blade.

Her assailant continued to make threats after being arrested at the scene of the assault at his then home on Festival Crescent in Orford, saying: “I’ll slash her in the throat, she deserves it – I wish she was dead.”

He was imprisoned again in July last year for 18 weeks after admitting fraud, two counts of theft and possession of amphetamine, having stolen a bank card on Princess Street in Sankey Bridges and used it to buy items at shops on Lovely Lane.