The ringleader of a ‘vamoose’ burglary gang that stole high-powered cars worth £110,000 sobbed as he was jailed.

Michael McDonagh was photographed holding wads of cash he’d made from selling the vehicles. The caption to one image, found on his mobile phone, read: “Today’s wage. Can’t moan. What I make a day you don’t make a month. Only f*** with the 50s [£50 notes].”

The 22-year-old was found guilty in his absence last November of running the Coventry-based gang that made almost nightly-raids to steal cars in Oxfordshire.

At his sentencing hearing on Tuesday morning, barrister Julian Lynch said the baby-faced burglar had failed to attend his trial as he had only recently been released from prison and wanted to spend time with his young son.

Jailing him for six years and one month, Judge Ian Pringle QC said McDonagh ‘didn’t have the guts’ to attend his trial.

Although he understood the desire to spend time with his son, the judge said, by failing to plead guilty ahead of the trial as his lawyers had expected, he was now facing longer in jail.

Oxford Mail:

Michael McDonagh's mugshot Picture: TVP

Last year, jurors at Oxford Crown Court heard McDonagh was the ringleader of a ‘vamoose’ burglary gang, so called by detectives because they managed to swipe keys to high-performance motors and get away so quickly.

The group was snared when police officers, who were lying in wait for them in Banbury, won a high-speed pursuit through the north Oxfordshire town in May 2019. McDonagh was behind the wheel of the VW Golf when he crashed into a knee-high hedge, bringing the chase to an end.

In December, five other members of the gang were jailed for a total of 19 years and nine months. Judge Pringle told the men: “I have no doubt the only sentence I can pass is one of immediate imprisonment in all your cases.”

One of the gang’s victims, a single mum whose BMW was stolen from her driveway after burglars stole the keys while she and her son slept upstairs, told McDonagh’s co-conspirators last year that her boy asked her to pass on the message: “Tell them that I hate them.”

The mum said the presence of toys should have made it clear there was a child in the house when they broke in on May 2, 2019.

“Did that not cross your mind? What if it was your child,” she demanded of the defendants.

Another victim, whose new hybrid VW was stolen, said his children had ‘lost something they were really excited about and lost [their] innocence’. One child had ‘become jaded’ and was of the view ‘what’s the point of getting something nice, it will only be taken away’, he said.

READ MORE: The full story of the 'vamoose' burglary gang who weren't fast enough

McDonagh was heard crying in the dock in courtroom two on Tuesday as Judge Pringle told him of the moving victim statements.

In his own letter to the judge, he was said to have ‘savagely’ described himself - painting a picture of ‘someone who cared not one but about the law and its consequences’.

Mr Lynch, mitigating, said his client had been in and out of prison in the past two years for offences committed while he was still a teenager. Since the birth of his child, McDonagh, who struggled with poor mental health, had resolved to go straight.

The defendant, of Longford, Coventry, was sentenced to six years and one month for conspiracy to burgle, conspiracy to commit theft, possession of criminal property and failing to surrender to the court.

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