A businessman who raided machinery compounds across central Scotland to pay off loan sharks has been jailed.
Douglas Lammie previously admitted stealing £43,000 worth of plant from four different locked compounds in Perthshire, Edinburgh Airport and a graveyard.
Lammie, of Barns Street in Glasgow, raided the machinery yards over the course of eight days but was ultimately foiled by trackers built into the stolen kit.
At Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday, the 59-year-old first offender appeared for sentencing and was jailed for 11 months.
Gleneagles raid
A yellow JCB digger, used by golf maintenance workers, was taken from Gleneagles on February 4, 2019.
It has never been traced.
The court heard Lammie visited a lockup at the complex, which had been secured with a padlocked chain.
The next day, a supervisor checked CCTV footage of the compound.
He saw the digger had been driven out of the compound and onto Auchterarder’s Western Road at around 6.37pm the night before, towards the A9.
Unscheduled departure
Just two days later, Lammie targeted his next machinery lock-up – a high security yard at Edinburgh Airport.
The yard, operated by construction giants Balfour Beattie, contained a number of machines including an industrial lighting unit, valued at just over £6,500.
Hired from A-Plant, now Sunbelt Rentals, the light was stored away by employees in a secured compound.
Ultimately, the rental company were contacted by police to be told that the missing light had been recovered.
Dualling with the law
Lammie’s third compound was also operated by Balfour Beattie and was where the firm was storing machinery being used on the A9 dualling project.
On February 9, Lammie sneaked into the yard at Loak Farm, near Bankfoot and plundered a roller worth £6,000, which was owned by a plant hire company.
The roller’s tracker showed the vehicle had been activated at 10.48 that day – a Saturday.
Site managers became suspicious because nobody was working at the site at the time.
Tracker data showed the vehicle was near the A908 between Dunfermline and Alloa.
Grave mistake
Lammie’s fourth and final raid came at The Stables at Denny Cemetery.
On February 12, he stole a £6,000 Caterpillar mini-digger, which had been parked nearby.
The digger’s owner had parked the digger on February 11 and closed the gate, before finding it was missing the next day.
He returned home to get phone signal to check the tracker, which stated the digger was in the middle of a field near Forestmill, Clackmannanshire.
Tracked
The Denny digger owner contacted police, who followed the tracker’s co-ordinates to a depot on the A907.
Police found an area of land which was impossible to pass in their car but discovered a gated red ash road just 50m away.
As they made their way up the road, officers first encountered the roller taken from Bankfoot.
As they progressed, they also discovered the industrial light from Edinburgh Airport and lastly the digger from Denny.
A mobile phone was also found, which was registered to Ardroil Contracts, a company of which Lammie was director.
Lammie was arrested and in a police interview, told officers he was driving the vehicles “legitimately” and had “no knowledge of them being stolen”.
Loan sharks
At Lammie’s sentencing, solicitor Paul Ralph said: “The company he set up was struggling at this time and sharks in the water approached him and suggested this may be a way to deal with debts.
“Having taken this step, he realised he was well in over his head.
“He’s recognised the gravity of the situation he was in.”
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Lammie there was no alternative to imprisonment.
“It is tragic that someone who is in their late fifties with an unblemished record comes before the court in any circumstances but perhaps more so when the circumstances are such that the offences are serious.
“It clearly was not an off-the-cuff activity.
“The whole thing screams to me of being a well thought out operation.
“It may be that you were a cog to some extent because of your circumstances.
“Custody is well merited, even although you’re a first offender.”
