A JUDGE has told a Romanian criminal that he is not wanted in this country and urged the authorities to send him home as soon as possible.
Claudui Neconosctu was caught red-handed after he set off alarms at the Newbery Metals yard in Newton Abbot as he tried to drill through a roof of a store room.
He was part of a gang of four men who spent September 2019 touring Britain and carrying out similar raids on scrapyards as far apart as Devon, London and Cleveland.
Neconosctu, aged 25, of no fixed address, admitted burglary and was jailed for a year by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.
He told him: ‘The clear picture is of you roaming around the country simply in order to burgle, so there is a very good reason for you to be deported.
‘I make a plea to the authorities not to delay the deportation. We have no use for people who come here just to burgle. If you want to do so in your own country, that’s up to you.’
Mr Tom Bradnock, prosecuting, said Neconosctu was one of four men who cut the perimeter fence at the Newbery Metals yard in Newton Abbot on the afternoon of September 1 last year.
They were seen on CCTV carrying reinforced plastic sacks and power tools and they targeted a building where the most valuable, nonferrous metals were stored.
They tried to cut their way through the roof but an alarm sounded as they did so and police arrived and arrested two of them, including Neconosctu, as they fled.
He claimed he was sleeping rough nearby and had nothing to do with the raid, but was identified on the CCTV footage.
Mr Martin Pearce, defending, said Neconosctu has already served one jail sentence for similar thefts in London which were carried out in the four weeks after this burglary.
He wants to return to Romania to look after his wife and three children and does not plan to dispute his deportation.