Four held after police swoop on Doncaster car theft and burglary gang

The gang were detained near to Doncaster Sheffield Airport after dumping a stolen car on someone’s driveway and then attempting to escape on foot.

South Yorkshire Police’s Operations Unit revealed details of the arrests on its Facebook page.

A post said: “We are out looking for folk who are up to no good all the time, but we can't be everywhere at once.

"We rely on you good folk to ring us when you see something that's not quite right, after all the police are the public and the public are the police. That's precisely what happened this morning in Auckley in Doncaster.

“We were hunting for a BMW that some light fingered horrors had taken during a burglary in Askern, and had followed the scent so to speak.

"Then we had a call from a concerned resident about two young males in Auckley, with mole grips, and he suspected they weren't planning on tightening their brake cables!

“We didn't find them but we don’t give up that easily. We cast the net and soon spotted a VW Golf and something was just not quite right. Our suspicions were on point when it was abandoned on someone's driveway and the occupants decided fleeing on foot was the future.

“Because we work hard to know the areas we work in we headed them off and they ran straight into us. After some fancy reversing usually reserved for Bond films, one was detained and then in stepped police dog Jooba. The dog’s expert nose guided us to three further offenders hiding in the bushes near to the airport.

“The Golf had been stolen during a burglary while the occupant slept on unaware, just a couple of streets away, only moments before. Still following the scent, the BMW we were looking for was located only a few hundred metres away from the burglary.

“The hapless foursome remain in custody this morning to be spoken to by detectives, young enough to still be foolish but old enough to know better.”