Pretty Aspiring Model Who Drove a Gang of Armed Thieves Escaping a Robbery Sentenced to Prison (Photos)

After stealing car keys, the gang would then make off with the vehicles to be either sold on with false plates, stripped of parts or burnt out.
Police later found video footage of one of the vehicles on fire in a field – a Mercedes worth £40,000 and stolen from Petts Wood in Kent – on the phone of one of the thieves.

The court heard they were paid £1,500 to be shared between them for each car stolen between June 12 and August 14 last year. Several break-ins would be committed in one night, with some residents having two cars stolen off their driveways. The gang even had the audacity to target one road on two consecutive nights.

Former agricultural college student Covele, of Orpington, looked stunned as she was sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institution on Monday after admitting conspiracy to steal.

Father-of-three Thomas Ripley, 21, was described as the ‘controlling mind’ of the organised enterprise and involved in 21 break-ins and thefts. He was jailed for five years. Ripley, of St Mary Cray, Kent, together with Jack Hever, 20, and Freddie Friend, 17, of Orpington and 16-year-old Harry Turner, of Northfleet, admitted conspiracy to burgle.

Apprentice engineer Hever was sentenced to three years’ youth custody, Friend was given a two-year detention and training order, and Turner was sentenced to an 18-month detention and training order. Shannon Kelynack, 19, of Orpington, Charlie Parker, 16, of Orpington, and a 16-year-old girl who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal.

Kelynack was given two years’ youth custody and Parker was sentenced to a 12-month detention and training order. The teenage girl was not at court today as she was sitting a GCSE exam. She will be sentenced tomorrow. The court heard the burglaries were carried out in Bexley, Bexleyheath, Petts Wood, Orpington, Swanley, West Kingsdown, Otford, Dartford, Hartley, Strood, Higham and Larkfield.

Sentencing the seven gang members, Judge Adele Williams said the burglaries ‘bore the hallmarks’ of professional crime. She said: ‘Tools were used to gain access and many of the householders were asleep in their homes.

‘I have read victim personal statements and they make plain not surprisingly how badly affected they have been by thrse crimes, with feelings of violation of their homes as well as the financial loss and inconvenience they have suffered.

‘The houses were targeted for their high-value cars. They were disposed of either in their entirety or for their parts.

‘I have no doubt there were those higher up the chain who were older and more sophisticated criminals than you, but each of you played your part in this criminality.’