Officer jailed after stealing bikes from police custody
Corrupt sergeant stole £16,000 worth of vehicles
A CORRUPT Metropolitan Police officer has been sent to prison for 18 months after stealing £16,000 worth of vehicles, including several motorcycles which were in police custody after already being taken from their rightful owners.
Sergeant David Robinson, 36-years-old and attached to Lambeth in south London, admitted to stealing five motorbikes along with three pushbikes and a BMW parked outside Brixton police station.
To cover his tracks, Robinson used a colleague’s radio to carry out vehicle checks on the bikes he wanted to steal. He updated the BMW’s record to instruct other officers not to return it to a suspect it had been taken from.
Robinson also deceived the DVLA by registering some of the already-stolen bikes in the name of Stuart Seal - the previous owner of a house he’d just bought, without his knowledge. Robinson also told the DVLA that he was the registered keeper of three of the motorcycles he’d taken and he managed to sell one on to the owner of a dealership.
After Robinson had taken the bikes, the Met was forced to pay compensation to two of the rightful owners.
Fellow officers became suspicious of Robinson after a couple of bicycles went missing from Brixton police station. After colleagues discovered Robinson had checked them out, they were later found in a search of his house, with one being offered for sale on eBay using his wife’s account.
According to Robinson’s defence solicitor, his reasons for stealing were down to being locked in a ‘bitter’ custody battle for his children with his ex-wife, who had the backing of her mother’s £4 million lottery win. Speaking on behalf of his client, Kevin Baumber said, ‘This is a broken man losing his faith and getting lost rather than a malicious conniver.’
During his trial, Robinson pleaded guilty to eight thefts, two counts of misconduct in public office and five fraud offences between May 10 2013, and July 6 2015.
He is currently suspended from his job and is likely to be fired as a result of misconduct proceedings.
When sentencing, Honour Judge Anthony Pitts alluded to Robinson’s crimes impacting on the public’s perception of the police. He said: ‘This is a very unhappy situation for everyone: for you of course, for your family it's a very sad situation to face and it's an unhappy one for the court to have to sentence a police officer and a sergeant for serious criminal offences. It's sad for the public as well.’
