Group who burgled Burbage home twice in one week jailed

After taking £100,000 worth of items on 26 November 2018, the thieves returned again just two days later.

In November 2018 a burglary occurred at a property in Burbage and during this incident £100,000 worth of items were stolen – including car keys and empty watch boxes. However, the cars weren’t taken.

The suspects became aware that the watches were worth a considerable amount of money and returned to the same address two days afterwards while the occupants were at home.

During the evening of 28 November Ryan Raczowski, Aaron Powell and Scott Williams broke into the property.  One of the occupants was in the process of putting his two young children to bed when they barged in.

The two adult victims were threatened with knives and hammers and made to hand over their mobile phones.  The defendants then stole the watches before leaving the property.

Five people were charged during the investigation for their roles in the burglary and the subsequent handling of the stolen goods.

Three of the defendants in the case were sentenced last year.  Reporting restrictions were in place pending the outcome of the case against the two remaining defendants, who were convicted and sentenced last week.

In total the three men who took part in the burglary, Ryan Raczowski, 29, Aaron Powell, 20, and Scott Williams, 40, received 23 years in prison.

Two more men, Luke Frederick and Lee Ryan Smith received 12 months (suspended) and 3 years in prison respectively, for handling stolen goods. 

In addition to these sentences:

• Powell is already serving 8 years in prison for an unrelated offences. The sentence for this case was ordered to run consecutively.
• Lee Ryan Smith, 20, was also already serving a three years and two months prison sentence for an unrelated matter.  His new sentence will run consecutively.

Investigator Rosie Wood, said: “This has been a lengthy and complex investigation with many strands.  Our initial investigation centred on the vehicles that were stolen during the course of offences committed in Leicestershire, West Midlands and Warwickshire which then led us to identify the people responsible for the burglaries.

“The aggravated burglary committed in Burbage was particularly serious and one which was witnessed by the victims’ two young children.  The trauma of that evening will stay with them for a very long time.

“The three defendants responsible for those offences had no qualms about returning to the scene of their original crime, they were motivated by greed. They subjected the victims to unnecessary and unwarranted levels of violence.

“We are pleased with the outcome of this investigation and a number of the offenders now face time behind bars.”