Three brothers have been jailed for their part in a conspiracy to steal high value vehicles that were cut up for parts at a travellers’ site.

They were caught red-handed after a sophisticated tracking device filmed them stealing and dismantling a £38,000 car transporter with the personal number plate TOW.

They removed the memory card - but carelessly left it for police to find behind a sun visor in one of their cars.

Alfie Powell, 37, Roger Powell, 34, and 40-year-old George Powell admitted conspiracy to steal between February and August last year. Jay Osborne, 35, admitted theft.

Alfie Powell, of Button Street, Swanley, and Roger Powell, of Meadow Lane, Runwell, Wickford, Essex, were each jailed for three years and eight months.

George Powell, of Hilltop Farm, London Road, Farningham, was sentenced to 14 months and Osborne, of Parkside Avenue, Bexleyheath, to 18 months.

Maidstone Crown Court heard 10 vehicles valued at almost £116,000 were involved in the conspiracy.

They were “cannibalised” at the travellers’ site at Hilltop Farm - where Roger Powell and others were arrested in 2010 for running a cocaine supply operation.

Powell was later jailed for 13 years for conspiracy to supply the drug.

Prosecutor Elise Jeremiah said police received a call from a man saying he overheard a discussions about removing parts and stripping down vehicles in a barn at the site.

Officers swooped on August 15 last year. “What they found were stripped down vehicles previously stolen,” said Miss Jeremiah.

“New vehicles were stolen and taken apart. They swapped the new parts from the stolen vehicles into vehicles they used, cutting them up and replacing new for old.

“Evidence connecting them was various memory cards and CCTV footage from a vehicle. They were identified as being in the vehicle and around it.

“There was dash cam footage. It was a very convoluted, complicated tracing and tracking operation.”

Miss Jeremiah said victims of the thefts were put to great inconvenience when making insurance claims. It took six months to replace the tow truck because there was a waiting list.

Father-of-three Alfie Powell had seven previous convictions for 11 offences and served jail sentences for blackmail and handling stolen goods.

Roger Powell had three convictions and was recalled on the 13-year sentence imposed in 2010.

Father-of-four George Powell had six convictions for 11 offences, including assault. Osborne, also a dad-of-three, had five convictions for nine offences. He was jailed for four years in 2014 for drug-dealing.

Judge Jeremy Carey said the victims should not be forgotten in such cases.

“We sit in this court in this wholly anodyne and sanitised vacuum when there are people out there trying to make an honest, decent living and thieves come and want to take their goods and strip them down,” he said.

“That is something the court needs to bear in mind. The court doesn’t underestimate the impact of this kind of offending.”

Passing sentence, he said: “Your offending was plainly against a background of careful, if not expert planning, with one purpose in mind - namely financial benefit.

“There should be as a matter of a just outcome appropriately severe sentences. I regard the offending of the main culprits as very serious indeed.”

The judge ordered that the brothers be deprived of two Vauxhall Astra cars used in their crimes.

After the hearing, Detective Sergeant Rik Spicer, the senior investigating officer for this case, said: "The operation these offenders ran was well choreographed and sophisticated.

"They all had a role to play, from transporting the stolen cars back to their barn to stripping them of parts. These parts would then be sold on or be used in legitimate vehicles.

"The video was an important piece of evidence used to secure this conviction. The offenders were clearly aware the cameras were filming them but assumed the footage would never see the light of day. Thankfully we were able to recover this data.

"This type of offending is far from victimless. The vehicles taken were relied upon by their victims for work and their loss would have placed a significant financial and emotional burden on them."