Patrick Roach and Philip Turner pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit burglary between September 2007 and January 2008.


Chester Crown Court heard that between September last year and January this year they committed at least 21 crimes in Wigan, Leigh and Newton-le-Willows, including no fewer than six robberies against small supermarkets.
R

oach was sentenced to six and a half years at Chester Crown Court. Turner has been sentenced to seven and a half years.
The offenders were often armed during the robberies, mostly with machetes, and Tesco Expresses were particularly hard hit: one in Atherton and one in Atherton Road, Hindley Green, which was robbed twice within weeks. Police say there is a consolation that no one was seriously injured.
Roach and Turner would steal cars from the homes they burgled and then use the stolen vehicle for a commercial robbery soon after. The stolen car would then be abandoned.
Cash and cigarettes were stolen in most cases from the commercial premises.


Roach, 26, of Stout Street, Leigh, drove a works van that had a Global Positioning System installed which plotted the movements of the van. In January 2008, his boss examined the system after being contacted by a building site manager enquiring why the van had been at his site late one evening. He noticed a number of irregularities with the personal mileage Roach had been doing and Roach was suspended following a disciplinary hearing.


The van was retrieved and during inspection gloves, balaclavas and metal bars were recovered prompting the company to call the police.

Subsequent analysis of the GPS from the van showed that it was present near the locations of a number of burglaries and robberies across Wigan and Merseyside, as well as the homes of Roach and Turner.
Turner, 24, of Chadwick Street, Leigh, was also identified as a result of CCTV recovered from some of the commercial robberies.
The pair were produced from prison, where they were already serving a sentence for burglary, and later charged.

Det Sgt Jason Eddison from Wigan CID said: "Roach and Turner were arrogant enough to believe they were not going to be caught. They used weapons to threaten innocent members of the public who were left extremely shaken by the ordeal.
"I hope these sentences show the public that although it may seem like action is not taken immediately sometimes, we work hard to ensure evidence is gathered and used to put offenders like Roach and Turner behind bars, and make the community feel safer.''