A notorious car thief has been locked up for more than a year after stealing a motor just weeks after he was released from his last sentence.
Jordan Chesser – who boasts about being “the thief of the north-east” – appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday for his fourth car crime offence.
He is one of about a dozen young men who have spent most of their adult lives in and out of detention as a result of trying to satisfy their “addiction” to fast cars.
And today, the Press and Journal can reveal several members of the gang are understood to have met in a council-run pupil support service for troubled youths.
A source said: “(We) took in kids from all different schools, aged 5-18 who were about to be expelled from their school for various reasons but mainly for anger management.
“Several of the car gang were with us right from primary school.”
The council did not wish to comment on the claims last night.
Yesterday, 19-year-old Chesser appeared in court for sentencing after previously admitting stealing a Lexus RX300 from a property in Kintore in October.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard the car was found 35 miles away, and that when police traced the teenager, they discovered messages on his phone bragging about the crime.
Chesser swiped the Lexus just a month after being released from detention.
In May last year, he was locked up for 18 months and banned from the roads for three years after leading police on a high-speed chase around Aberdeenshire.
He drove the wrong way around a roundabout before forcing other motorists to swerve out of his way as he tried to outrun the officers pursuing him and was only caught when he crashed into a marked police car. He was released in September.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard Lexus owner Michael Clark – who previously described the vehicle as his “pride and joy” – had parked it at about 3pm on October 13, and gone to bed at midnight.
When he woke he discovered it had been stolen, and the grey vehicle was spotted later that day at Cornhill Shopping Centre in Aberdeen with severe damage to the tyres.
Police traced Chesser, whose address was listed in court papers as HMP Grampian, and confiscated his mobile phone where they found numerous messages to friends about the crime.
The car had 85,000 miles on the clock and was valued at £4,500 at the time of the theft.
Defence agent Peter Shepherd said the repeat offender had “grown up” since he began his crime spree in his early teens and was “disgusted at himself” when he stole the latest car.
He added that Chesser had began an apprenticeship after his last release which came to an end because of a dispute over pay slips, but insisted the teenager wanted to get back into work and “keep out of trouble”.
But Sheriff Graham Buchanan said that Chesser’s long record left him “no alternative” but to detain him.
He ordered him to serve the remaining 279 days of his previous sentence for the May offence, followed by a total of 13 months for the latest offence.