A CROOKED delivery driver who stole £45,000 worth of mobile phones and other items has been ordered to repay almost £25,000 – or face more time in jail.
Piotr Durat had been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence at Warwick Crown Court in May last year for the theft of iPhones while working as a driver for DHL.
But within weeks of getting another job in a warehouse, Durat, 52, of Bath Street, Rugby, was back to his old tricks, stealing at least £5,000 worth of perfume and cosmetics.
And when he appeared at the court again last month, he was ordered to serve nine months of his suspended sentence – consecutive to ten months for the new offences.
When Durat had been given the suspended sentence, a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act was adjourned for an investigation into his finances.
Following a series of adjournments, prosecutor Graeme Simpson said Durat’s benefit from those thefts had been a total of £45,000 – and he had assets in excess of that figure.
Taking into account the value of the property which had been recovered from his home, Judge Peter Cooke ordered £24,778 to be confiscated from Durat under the Proceeds of Crime Act, with the money being paid in compensation to DHL.
The judge gave him three months to pay up, with a prison term of eight months in default of payment within that time – and Nick Devine, defending, pointed out that £21,000 had already been seized by the police.
During the original hearing in May last year, it was said that Durat had been working as a delivery driver for UK Mail, which is part of DHL, based at its Ryton hub.
Following a report that 15 phones dispatched from the Ryton hub had not arrived at the company’s Docklands hub, Durat came under suspicion and his movements were monitored.
When he next left the hub he took a route through Ryton village, which was not a permitted route, before stopping in a layby, climbing into the back of the lorry and bringing a sack of items into his cab.
The police were called, and when he was arrested officers found ‘an Aladdin’s cave’ of more than 100 stolen items at his home.
Despite having stolen goods worth a total of £45,000 he was given a suspended sentence.
But Durat threw away the chance he had been given when, having got a job with the MDA storage and distribution firm, he began stealing perfumes and cosmetics from the firm’s warehouse in Swift Park, Rugby.
He was caught out after his bosses saw the products for sale on eBay and bought items which were delivered in a package with his address on it as the sender.
And Durat, who had stolen at least £5,000 worth of items, may face a further Proceeds of Crime Act hearing in relation to those thefts.
