TWO thieves have been jailed after posing with stolen motorcycles on Facebook.
Jonathan Dougan, 26, and Matthew Murphy, 23, posed for pictures with cars, champagne bottles and sports bikes they stole in a seven-month spree.
They were caught after the owner of a KTM they stole was tipped off about them, and found pictures on Facebook of the thief sitting on his bike.
Both have been jailed for nine years and four months after pleading guilty to conspiring to steal.
The judge in the trial said they had ‘blighted the lives’ of residents of north Manchester, Bury and Salford with 14 thefts and a robbery between November 2012 and June last year.
The pair were already on licence from a previous robbery sentence and barred from being together, Manchester Crown Court heard.
In thefts minutes apart in November 2012, they took a Mercedes A-Class and a Triumph Bonneville, pictures of which were posted on Murphy’s Facebook page.
Victims typically arrived home to find patio doors open and keys and valuables gone.
They included a Broughton couple who were both being treated for cancer. Their Honda Accord was found smashed into a tree following a 70mph police chase.
Sentencing Dougan, from Lower Kersal, and Murphy, from Salford, Judge David Hernandez said: “You were glamorising your offending. You took great pleasure in committing those crimes.”
