James Chesterton: Career criminal caught after forgetting he was tagged

James Chesterton is a prolific burglar who regards stealing from houses and offices as his way of making a living.

Today, though, we can reveal that while he is technically skilled in the shadowy art of breaking and entering, the Rotherham crook dropped an enormous clanger in his last episode of thievery.

Chesterton, aged 31, had decided to vary his methods by preying on a Peak District home 30 miles from his regular patch.

The problem was he had overlooked the fact he was wearing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tag, forced on him for his previous lawbreaking. That led police straight to his front door.

It was a curious error by the crook, whose background and profile have kept police on his trail for years.

In 2020, he was jailed for five years for offences of dishonesty, including break-ins, committed the previous year.

Regarded then as a "serial burglar," Chesterton, who then lived at Bear Tree Road, Parkgate, Rotherham, admitted three offences in Greater Manchester and 12 others across Derbyshire.

Police constable Sherry Kenyon, who led the investigation, commented: "James Chesterton's offending was quite staggering."

Catching him had been a costly affair for the taxpayer - a police helicopter was used to locate him as he fled the scene of one of his crimes.

He was released and was back at 'work' in January 2022.

Two months after leaving his cell, and then living in Whybourne Grove, Wellgate, Rotherham, he broke into a home on a residential street in Rawmarsh.

He made off with property from the home and a £13,000 car.

The owner said at the time: “I’m upset at the fact that someone has been in our house, and I dread to think what would have happened if my wife or I had been in."

In March of that year, Chesterton, who had qualifications in mechanical engineering and once worked on the railways, was jailed for 32 months.

Fast forward to March this year.

Chesterton, then of East Avenue, Rawmarsh, burgled a house in Ashbourne Road, Brassington, Matlock.

The circumstances of his arrest were not made public in the media, but we have pieced together how he was caught and eventually handed a two years and four months, in September, at Derby Crown Court.

Because of time spent on remand waiting for his case to reach court, Chesterton is believed to have already been released.

Derbyshire Constabulary told us they had been concerned by "a number of burglaries in the north of the county.

"Proactive patrols were deployed to the area and officers attempted to stop a Mercedes on cloned plates that was driving erratically" they revealed.

"The car failed to stop and drove off at speed, dangerously."

Officers lost sight of the car, knowing only that it was heading towards Sheffield.

They didn't give up though.

"Knowing that Chesterton had form for using this route and driving in this manner, officers made inquiries with colleagues over the border in South Yorkshire as to the whereabouts of Chesterton on the day of the fail-to-stop.

"It turned out that, due to his previous offending, Chesterton was wearing a GPS tag which, after it was analysed, showed that he was close to the Derbyshire border in South Yorkshire immediately before and just after the fail-to-stop.

"Further work was then done which showed the same tag moving slowly away from where the Mercedes was last seen by local residents in the Fulwood area of Sheffield, before making its way slowly into the city on what turned out to be a bus."

CCTV footage confirmed Chesterton was on the bus.

"Further reviews of the GPS tag data on the dates and times of the burglaries showed that Chesterton was at the location of one the burglary in Brassington for approximately three minutes, confirming our suspicions of his involvement," said police.

"When officers attended his address a search of the property found a distinctive Canada Goose jacket, which belonged to the son of the woman who had been burgled."

Sadly for the family involved, none of the jewellery pocketed by Chesterton was ever recovered.

The arrest clearly showed Derbyshire police's determination to halt cross-county pillaging.

"We know that criminals do not see borders – but sadly for them neither do we" said the force.

"It’s not like a Western where you can hop over the state lines and the law stops following you.

"We will come after you, we will get local officers to come after you and we will arrest you.

"And the same goes for criminals from Derbyshire who seek to commit crimes elsewhere, this is no safe haven, and we will look to bring you to justice no matter where you have committed your offences."

The constabulary says Chesterton and other roaming burglars deliberately target areas in the countryside, and most frequently in the hours of darkness.

"Rural communities are targeted by criminals as they present a somewhat easier target than larger, more built-up areas" they say.

"Rural areas will have less CCTV, houses that are more spread out and on larger pieces of land, and the potential to be disturbed is much smaller.

"We know that many burglars are opportunistic, and they look for homes that appear to be easy targets.

"So we will always advise that people make their homes unwelcoming to criminals – wired burglar alarms, closed locked windows and doors, security lights, CCTV and, if possible, install bollards to stop easy removal of cars.

"Criminals are not, in our experience, disguising themselves as tourists or using that as cover, their offences take place at night when they are less likely to be discovered."