Man used fake Facebook profile to steal bike

A man has been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to burglary and other offences at Southampton Crown Court.

Thomas Anthony Wellman, 25, of Commercial Road in Southampton, used a fake Facebook profile to arrange to visit an address on Corbin Road on 7 February, 2022. He had planned to view a bike that had been listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace, but instead he stole it.

The victim, a man in his 30s, had left the bike in the lean-to ready for the prospective buyer to look at. However, when no one arrived, he went to move the bike back into his shed and discovered it was missing. He then saw a Nissan Micra driving away with the bike in the back.

The vehicle was later located by officers on Shakespeare Drive, Totton, with Wellman seen walking nearby. He was arrested on 21 April, 2022 after DNA evidence at the scene returned a match to him. Analysis of his phone data showed that he was in the area of the burglary when it happened and was accessing the fake Facebook account.

Appearing at Southampton Crown Court on 23 March, Wellman was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the burglary. He also received concurrent sentences of 14 months for dangerous driving, two months for assaulting an emergency worker, and one month for breach of bail conditions.

During the dangerous driving incident, which occurred on 30 November, 2022, Wellman failed to stop for police officers and drove at 136mph while going the wrong way around a roundabout. He also assaulted two emergency workers during his arrest for this incident.

The court heard that Wellman had cut off his electronic monitoring tag on 7 October, 2022, leading to his one-month sentence for breaching bail conditions.

Speaking about the sentence, a police spokesperson said: “This sentence shows we will use all the tools at our disposal, including forensics, to bring offenders to justice and I hope it reassures our communities that we take burglary very seriously. We want to use this result to remind people that selling online can be dangerous. We would ask sellers to be cautious and report anything suspicious to us.”