A JUDGE struck a blow yesterday for businesses struggling to survive against thefts from their premises when he jailed three factory burglars.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, said that the cost of providing security protection from thieves was robbing Teesside and other needy areas of prospective jobs.

Jonathan Smart, 26, of Tilbury Road, Sunderland, Dean Sloan, 20, of Hylton Road, Sunderland, and Andrew Henderson, 32, of Peckham Road, Pennywell, Sunderland, all pleaded guilty to burglary and the theft of £1,700 of property from Stadium Consumer Products, of Hartlepool, on January 19.

Michael Bosomworth, prosecuting, said the men claimed that they drove down to buy a trials motorcycle from enthusiasts at an area near the Tofts Farm Industrial Estate, in Hartlepool.

But closed-circuit television footage showed that the three spent five minutes at the Stadium Consumer Products premises.

Smart told police that a gipsy told them about boxes of items lying outside the factory.

He said he thought that the car alarm, socket sets and battery chargers must be faulty and had been abandoned, but the court heard that a piece of cardboard inside the warehouse bore a footprint which matched Sloan's.

Aisha Wadoodi, in mitigation, said that Smart was a naive person who felt that others would have acted in the same way.

Jailing the three men for 12 months each, Judge Fox said: "Burglaries like this are a particular burden on commerce and industry, and it affects jobs, in that if businesses did not have such a heavy financial burden in protecting themselves in the way it did, and you were caught, there would be more jobs for people.

"Jobs for people are its lifeline and it is the only way that jobs will survive.

"You were attacking that very need for people's livelihoods, and that is why you must all go to prison."