ANGRY villagers have criticised a sentence handed out to a prolific lead thief who targeted their church as religious leaders count the cost of spiralling attacks.

At a Police and Communities Together (Pact) meeting in Middleton St George, near Darlington, people hit out at a judge’s decision last month to hand a six-month suspended sentence to 20-yearold Matthew Swinbank, who had stolen lead from St George’s church in the village, causing thousands of pounds of damage.

Swinbank was spared jail thanks partly due to a letter from the Reverend Paul Neville, who told Judge Howard Cowson that the thief, who lived next door to the church, had apologised and was beginning to make amends.

The area’s councillor, Steve York, told police at the Pact meeting: “It must be very demoralising for all the efforts you’ve put in.

“But don’t be too disheartened by it, because they’re not all going to get off.”

Another resident said: “I feel pretty strongly that someone who has caused a lot of problems in the village has got away scot free.”

In the neighbouring North Yorkshire diocese, which has 607 churches, the registrar, Lionel Lennox, said that in the past four years he has had to issue a record number of emergency licences to parishes targeted by thieves, so they can carry out urgent repairs to protect their buildings.

Mr Lennox, a specialist ecclesiastical lawyer at Yorkbased solicitors, Denison Till, said: “We’re seeking wider public support in preventing these thefts, whether through local vigilance, such as including them in neighbourhood watch schemes, where numbers of vehicles parked near churches are jotted down, or actively supporting national measures which the church is calling for.”

A national organisation, the Church Buildings Council, is lobbying Parliament to introduce legislation forcing all scrap metal merchants to audit and account in writing for all metals they buy, so it can be checked to have come from a verifiable source.

The online petition – at epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406%20 – already has more than 41,000 signatures.

Diocese of York church buildings officer Phil Thomas said: “We have had some churches which have had up to eight thefts and there are now real fears that while church insurers will cover the first theft, any subsequent ones are in the lap of the gods.”