A traveller carried out a ‘spree of offending’ after struggling to deal with his parents’ separation, a court heard.

Francis Reilly, 19, was part of a group who stole a Ford Transit van from a National Grid employee in Rishton before stripping it of a ‘significant quantity of power tools’.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Reilly was arrested driving a red getaway van towards a travellers site in Oswaldtwistle and officers also found other power tools connected to a business burglary the previous night.

Father-to-be Reilly, formerly of Parsonage Street, Church, pleaded guilty to theft and handling stolen goods and was given a 13-month jail term, suspended for two years, ordered to carry out 40 hours unpaid work and pay £300 costs.

Keith Harrison, prosecuting, told the court how National Grid employee Stephen Helm parked the van in Rishton on January 22 this year, but by the time he realised he had left the keys in the van it had gone. Police later found it abandoned on nearby Somerset Road with the back door open and power tools missing.

The court heard how a member of the public saw a group of men driving off in both blue and red vans and officers later stopped Reilly driving the red van heading towards Oswaldtwistle.

Mr Harrison said they recovered Mr Helm’s power tool drill, tool bucket, jacket and large fusion box. They also found a Bosch drill and HSS hire receipt belonging to David Haworth’s company Air Conditioning Design at Ewood Bridge in Haslingden which had been raided the night before.

Jonathan Duffy, defending, said Reilly, now of Ravensworth Road, Nottingham, had been ‘abusing alcohol and illicit drugs’ at the time and has ‘little memory of what he did’.

He told the court: “There’s no doubt he had gone seriously off the rails at the beginning of the year. He dealt very poorly with his parents’ separation which was an enormous emotional turmoil.”

Mr Duffy said it was ‘out of character’ and he is ‘ashamed’ and has now moved out of the area.

Judge Beverley Lunt said he had gone ‘so far off the rails he couldn’t see them’.

Sentencing, she said: “You have now this year had a spree of offending which caused financial loss and great inconvenience to your victims. They didn’t care if you were drunk and neither do I.”