Four men have been jailed for a combined total of more than 15 years for stealing 33 Land Rovers valued at approximately £600,000 during an eight-month crime spree. The group, aged between 35 and 50, targeted the vehicles across six police force areas between September 2024 and May 2025.
Leonard Hodgkins, Jimmy Butler, Benjamin Hobbs, and David Hodgkins frequently stole the high-end vehicles from car parks and business premises. CCTV footage captured one incident where the gang used an angle grinder to break a lock on a Land Rover parked in a customer car park.
The investigation culminated when West Mercia Police raided a caravan belonging to Jimmy Butler, 41. Inside, officers discovered clothing matching that worn by a suspect seen in CCTV footage, leading to the subsequent arrest of the remaining gang members on November 11 of the previous year. Police bodycam footage documented some of these arrests. One clip shows Leonard Hodgkins, 50, attempting to evade officers in a cemetery after being recognized.
David Hodgkins, 40, was apprehended while in bed during a raid on his home. Mobile phones seized from the group revealed they communicated while traveling in convoy with the stolen vehicles.
Benjamin Hobbs, 35, operated a workshop in Bristol that police identified as a "chop shop" where stolen car parts were processed. The conspirators delivered the stolen Land Rovers to this location. During searches of the workshop, officers found parts from the stolen vehicles, associated documents, and a jacket from one of the SUVs. Some of the stolen vehicles were identified by their owners or confirmed through keys found in the vehicles' bulkheads.
Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) data and phone forensics further linked Hobbs, his business, and the other conspirators to the stolen vehicles.
Leonard Hodgkins received a sentence of four years and nine months. Jimmy Butler was sentenced to three years and eight months. Benjamin Hobbs was jailed for four years and four months, and David Hodgkins received a three-year sentence. All four men had pleaded guilty to their charges at an earlier hearing.
Detective Sergeant Mark Jones of West Mercia Police stated, "This was a complex but ultimately successful investigation that tracked down and prosecuted this gang of car thieves. We are pleased to get these sentences today as their criminality harmed many people in our force area and neighboring forces too."