A Carlisle Crown Court judge is to sentence a teenager who handled two quad bikes worth £11,000 after they were stolen from a north Cumbrian farm.

At the city’s Rickergate court, 19-year-old Lewis Shields-Cromar pleaded guilty to handling the two quad bikes, which were stolen during a burglary from a farm at Plumpton, between Carlisle and Penrith, near to the A6.

Andy Travis, prosecuting, said the burglary happened at 10.30pm on May 11 last year, half a hour after the farmer had finished his day’s work.

A short time later, police were given a tip-off that quad bikes had been taken to the home of the defendant’s grandfather in Harraby, Carlisle. When police arrived there, the defendant made off on one of the quad bikes.

When police caught the defendant and questioned him about the bikes, he said they had been dropped off for him after he was contacted by a man who told him they were for sale. They were brought to him in the back of a white transit van, he said.

The van had been hired for that purpose, he told the officers.

Mr Travis said; “The quad bikes were damaged when they were returned to the farmer and they required repairs which costs £1,000. There is a claim for compensation.”

District Judge John Temperley said that his sentencing powers for the two offences admitted by Shields-Cromar, formerly of Meadow View, Harraby, were not sufficient; he therefore sent the case to Carlisle Crown Court for sentencing on April 6.

The date of the offence, which was admitted by the defendant, was said to be between May 10 and May 11 last year.