Hotel condom-machine raiders paid bill with coins

Two crooks have been jailed for stealing more than £4,000 in cash from condom machines. Jason Bolton and James Unick were caught in the Premier Inn, at the Wyvern, in Derby, after a condom machine in the hotel's toilet was found empty – and the pair paid for their overnight stay in pound coins.

Derby Crown Court heard the men had used skeleton keys to steal the money from 61 machines across the Midlands and northern England, including 11 in Derbyshire, in April. A satellite navigation system found in Bolton's car mapped out their route.



Police found a total of £4,658 in their room and in the car. Jailing "prime mover" Bolton for a year and Unick for six months, Recorder Nigel Godsmark QC said: "This was planned, organised and premeditated."

Bolton, 29, and Unick, 24, both of Kilmarnock, in Scotland, admitted six counts of theft and one charge of going equipped to steal. Alastair Munt, for Bolton, said: "He says he led the co-accused into this. He was given the tools by a drug dealer, who he owed a debt to."