Burglar raided 517 churches for cash

A burglar who raided 517 churches across England and Wales over nine months was jailed yesterday for four years.

Christopher Coulthard, 40, from Bedworth, Warwickshire, targeted churches on "all points of the compass" from North Yorkshire to East Anglia, Cornwall and Wales, and carried out at least two break-ins a day, Swansea Crown Court was told.

He broke into charity boxes, collection boxes and safes, escaping with up to £600 a time. He listed churches on a map with terms like "rich pickings", ripe for a second burglary. He was carrying £2,450 in cash when he was caught in Aberystwyth, west Wales, in September.

He admitted 15 burglaries and one attempted burglary and asked for 502 other offences to be taken into account. His counsel, James Jenkins, said: "If you want to see it in religious terms, he has made a good confession."

Judge Manning-Davies said: "These are shocking offences. Very often you were stealing money intended not for the church itself but for other good causes. I think that it must be right to say that thousands of people must have been affected by your offences. It seems to me that no place of worship is safe from you and I am sure that all right-thinking people will find these offences disgusting."

He jailed Coulthard for four years for the 15 separate break-ins and for two years, to run concurrently, for the attempted break-in.