A STOLEN car caused £30,000 damage when it crashed into the front of a fish and chip shop in Bewdley Road, Kidderminster, Worcester Crown Court was told.

The £13,000 Renault Megane, taken a few minutes earlier from a house in Freda Eddy Court, was also a write-off, said Adam Western, prosecuting.

The keys to the car had been stolen in a burglary when the intruders were disturbed and the police alerted.

The offence happened in April, 2002 but Robert Beresford, who had been in the car, was not arrested until August last year.

Beresford, a warehouseman, of St Giles Road, Derby, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking. He was ordered to do 60 hours unpaid work under a community punishment order and disqualified from driving for 12 months. He was traced after his DNA was found on a baseball cap left in the car but the prosecution accepted that he had not been in the vehicle at the time of the crash.

Miss Abigail Nixon, defending, said he was being given a lift.

Recorder Rachel Brand QC said it was a mystery why a normally hard-working and law-abiding man should have been involved.