A thief says he didn't intend to steal despite taking £1,000 worth of metal he 'spotted out of the corner of his eye" after searching through a company's skip.

Karl Grainger admitted theft by finding after he took metal equipment from Avenium Engineering, in Middlesbrough, on July 5. The 35-year-old told magistrates he'd scrapped the metal for £56 and tried to recover it when he saw a police car outside the business two days later.

Grainger told the court: "I didn't intend to steal it. There was a skip on the right hand side so I looked in the skip.

"I looked over and there was all the framework, it wasn't wrapped but there was a piece of paper that I discarded. I drove around there the next day and I saw a police car.

"I had an inkling that I did it wrong here. I did try and get them

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