A MAN who was found in possession of £13,000 of jewellery and £3,800 in cash after he was detained by residents has been jailed for more than two years.

People living in Hesketh Avenue, Astley Bridge, rushed out of their homes after a car crashed in the street at around 6.30pm on October 11 last year and managed to restrain Douglas Sharp.

It was reported men had been knocking on doors in the street in an apparent attempt to establish whether anyone was home.

Residents used vehicles to block off the street at the Ashworth Lane end and a Seat Leon which a group of men had been travelling in reversed and smashed into several cars and reversed into a wall.

Police were called to the scene and Sharp was arrested. The other occupants of the vehicle fled and have yet to be found.

When Sharp, aged 35, of Crompton Lodge Caravan Park in Hill Lane, was searched, police found £13,000 of jewellery, £3,800 in cash and a further £300 worth of Iranian notes.

He was sentenced at Bolton Crown Court yesterday to 27 months in prison for three counts of handling stolen goods and aggravated vehicle taking in that he allowed himself to be carried in a stolen car when it was involved in an accident.

Michelle Brown, prosecuting, said checks by police revealed the Seat Leon, worth around £30,000, had been stolen after the keys were taken from a house in Whitehaven Gardens, Manchester, in July.

The cash and jewellery was traced to three burglaries that had taken place during the day of October 11 in Bolton and Radcliffe.

The first was taken from a house in in Green Lane, Great Lever, when a glass panel in a door was broken to get into the property and £2,600 of jewellery was taken.

The second burglary was in Beaumont Chase, Hunger Hill, and £9,700 worth of jewellery was stolen after the patio doors were forced open.

The third was in Victoria Street, Radcliffe, where £4,000 worth of cash was taken.

During the two Bolton burglaries no one was home while a 21-year-old was asleep and remained undisturbed during the third.

Bolton Crown Court heard how on the day of the burglaries, Sharp said he was at home with his children until a man he had previously sold a van to, who he would not name, came to call in the Seat Leon.

He claimed he was given the money and jewellery for the van, but suspected it was stolen.

He was a passenger in the Seat Leon when it was involved in the crash.

Sharp had originally been charged with burglary instead of handling stolen goods, but CCTV from one of the break-ins showed three men, none of whom had the same build as the defendant or were wearing similar clothes to the ones he was in when he was arrested.

The burglary charges were left to lie on file.

A probation officer told the court Sharp, a father of five, was remorseful and regretted what he had done and needed money to support his family.

Sharp spent some time in custody following his arrest, his first time in prison for 10 years.

The court heard how some of the jewellery was gold and the Green Lane property was ‘ransacked’ during the burglary.

Judge Timothy Clayson, said: “All this property had come from three burglaries, each carried out earlier that day.

“The total value was in the region of £13,000.

"A significant quantity of that property it seems had sentimental value.”