Members of a violent gang that carried out a £1million crime spree stealing luxury cars from Warwickshire homes have been jailed.

The professional criminals broke into 51 houses across the Midlands and stole top-of-the-range motors over an eight-month period.

Three members of the Coventry-based gang, Keanan Walker, 23, Myles Campbell, 22, and a 17-year-old, who cannot be named, were arrested.

They admitted conspiracy to burgle and steal for their roles in the raids which took place across Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Coventry.

Walker was jailed for five-and-a-half years while the 17-year-old, who is already serving life for murder, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

A judge issued a warrant for Campbell's arrest after he failed to attend court on Thursday (2/12) for sentencing at Warwick Crown Court.

Judge Anthony Potter told Walker: "I accept your antecedents do not suggest you had been involved before this in serious criminality – but you took to it with enthusiasm.

"Plainly there was significant planning, and plainly these were professional activities carried out by enthusiastic criminals.

"But I will discount the sentence to take account of the sentence I have already passed for a single offence, and I bear in mind what you have done with yourself since your release."

Between April 1 and December 24, 2019, the gang struck a total of 51 houses with the three defendants involved with many of the raids.

Prosecutor Andrew Wallace said: "This is a very large conspiracy carried out between the 1st of April 2019 and the 24 December that year.

"It involves 51 separate addresses and a very wide geographical trawl in Warwickshire and Leicestershire looking for expensive vehicles to steal to a value which exceeds £1 million.

"All of these defendants are serious criminals, and burglary and theft seems to be a lifestyle for them.

"The object of the conspiracy was to obtain vehicles by the commission of burglaries, sometimes to get the car keys, but on other occasions there is a theft of the vehicle which is very close to being a robbery."

In one raid in Coventry, a man driving a brand new BMW was followed by the gang as he pulled into his driveway.

The gang approached him and demanded the car keys, which he handed over, and they drove away while a fourth gang member followed in an Audi.

In another break-in in July, the gang broke into a house in Market Harborough, Leics., and stole the keys of two Range Rovers worth £100,000.

The following night three cars were stolen following a burglary at a house in Coventry and weeks later another motor was taken from a house in Southam.

In one break-in jewellery was taken, together with the key to a £59,000 Audi RS3 which was then stolen.

The next night two more houses in Southam were targeted, with a BMW taken from the drive of one and another Audi RS3 from outside the other.

In August a Leicestershire man was woken by a masked man coming into his bedroom looking for the keys to his high-powered Lamborghini parked outside – but the intruder fled empty-handed.

Simon Hunka, defending Walker, said he became involved with the crime ring because to pay off a drug debt.