A GANG who raided an award-winning holiday park got away with property worth more than £25,000 after breaking into 18 lodges there, a court has heard.

The gang carried out the carefully planned raid during the close season in January last year, when the five-star Limefitt park near Bowness-on-Windermere had no visitors.

They broke into the chalets – mostly through the patio doors – and stole anything they thought they could sell on the black market, including duvets, clothing, bicycles and no fewer than 12 televisions, Carlisle Crown Court heard.

“It was plainly a professional burglary expedition, which had been reconnoitred beforehand, and it was carried out with military precision,” Judge Paul Batty QC said.

Only one of the gang was traced and he was sent to prison for a total of five years this week (MON).

Maurice Smith, 49, had denied having anything to do with the raid, but was found guilty of 18 charges of burglary after a five-day trial.

Judge Batty described him as “a prominent, if not the most prominent, member of the gang.”

It was only after the jury reached their verdict that the judge told them that Smith, of Town Croft, Dearham, near Maryport, had so many previous convictions he was “steeped in criminality”.

During the trial the court heard how Smith, a widowed father-of-four, was linked to the crime by three different strands of evidence – including a distinctive footprint from his boots which he left on a table in one of the lodges while unscrewing a television from the wall.

Some of the stolen property was also found at his home and at a farm he often used for storage.

And analysis of calls made to and from Smith’s mobile phone showed it had been near Windermere on the night of the burglaries, even though he said he had not.

In evidence Smith claimed he had been out lamping – alone - for foxes on his sister’s farm at Threlkeld at the time of the burglaries.

He had left home just after midnight and had not got home till after five in the morning, he said, and had been nowhere near Limefitt Park at the time of the raid.

Smith was jailed for four years for the burglary, with an extra year for cultivating and producing cannabis plants at his home, which he admitted.