A young man with severe learning difficulties was ‘used as a pawn’ by more sophisticated criminals in a three-week car burglary spree.

Evan Smethurst, 21 of Hawthorne Street, committed the spate of burglaries across Bolton, Bury and Darwen between October and November of last year, targeting homes at night and stealing their car keys while families including young children slept upstairs.

He was finally arrested after a highspeed police chase through Bolton in the early hours of the morning, on November 4.

David Wilcock, prosecuting, said: “A victim impact’s statement registered feelings of anger and revenge at having their private place violated.”

He added: “He says it has had an effect on his wife’s behaviour, made her memory loss worse and she has started to move keys around inside the house, in her mind, to keep things safe.”

Mr Wilcock told the court how Smethurst had series of burglaries had included targeting Walmersley Road between October 7 and 9 where he stole a BMW, a wallet and bank cards.

He then burgled a house on Bolton Road stealing a Mercedes on the night of October 31 to November 1 and another house on Windsor Drive, Bury on November 1 stealing house and car keys.

He then went on to steal a Kia from a home in Darwen on November 2 and a Ford Fiesta in Salford before eventually being chased down by officers and a police helicopter while driving the stolen Fiesta in the early hours of November 4 last year.

During the chase he ran through three sets of red lights and drove on the wrong side of the road, at around 60mph in a 30mph residential zone.

By the time police stopped and arrested him, Smethurst had been driving at 101mph and was found with a snap bag of cannabis with a screwdriver and mole grips.

Mr Wilcock’s fellow prosecutor Katherine Wright added that Smethurst was also in breach of a community order at the time he committed the burglaries.

Over the course of the three weeks he had built up 180 hours of curfew violations.

Since his arrest, he has been in custody in Forest Bank prison waiting to learn his fate since pleading guilty to six counts of burglary. 

But David Farley, defending, argued that Smethurst was a vulnerable young man whose crimes had largely benefited other, more sophisticated criminals who had used ‘carrot and stick’ methods to force him to do their bidding.

He said: “He was bullied and threatened but he was also given the proceeds of theft.”

He added: “It seems he was the likely pawn of others.”

Mr Farley explained that Smethurst suffered from autism and ADHD which had left him with the communicative abilities of a child and open to be used by others who encouraged him to break out of a hostel he had been staying at.

He said: “The people he’d been associating with simply texted him, encouraging him to break out and he did.”

Recorder Simon Hilton accepted that Smethurst had been used by more ruthless and sophisticated criminals but ruled that he still had to be punished for his part in the burglaries.

He said: “Other people were to some extent pulling the strings and you did their bidding.”

Recorder Hilton sentenced Smethurst to a suspended sentence of three years for the burglaries and banned him from driving for 18 months.