Crook keeps £30,000 Porsche funded by £93k theft - and even drives it to court

Shameless Steven Wedge – declared bankrupt in July 2010 with £140,000 debts – even took the blue soft top 911 Carrera to Wolverhampton Crown Court where his story of legitimately purchasing the luxury motor was dismissed by the jury who unanimously found him guilty of acquiring it by converting criminal property.

The 49-year-old claimed to have used some of a £44,000 'nest egg' kept under his bed to pay back lover Jayne Whitehouse, 51, who bought the £29,995 Porsche by debit card for him 48 hours after cheating a work colleague out of more than £93,000. Her bank balance had previously stood at £1.23.

Victim Royston Johns suffered from mild learning difficulties and was targeted after he inherited £94,875 in a lump sum from the pension of his local authority employee brother who passed away on March 18, 2013.

Whitehouse said she would manage the money, making monthly payments to him. He received a single £1,500 payment but four months later there was just £5,659 in the account.

Wedge and Whitehouse went on a shopping spree in Chester the day after the money was cleared into her account and travelled down to Slough to purchase the Porsche the following afternoon.

Wedge – who had £8.28 in his bank account shortly before the crime – later explained: "It was always my goal in life to own one."

The car was seized by police when the couple were arrested at the house they shared in Meredith Road, Wednesfield on October 27 2013 but it is understood the car was returned to him the following year.

It is thought this was for 'operational reasons' understood to have included the ever increasing garage bill faced by West Midlands Police. Wedge is banned from selling or otherwise disposing of the Porsche.

He is now likely to stay behind the wheel of the criminally obtained motor until at least the end of November when he and Whitehouse - who pleaded guilty to the theft of £93,374 from Royston Johns, a 45-year-old care assistant at Princess Lodge nursing home in Tipton, where she was his manager - are due to appear in the dock together for sentence.

Inspector Neil Postins, from the Economic Crime Team, said: "This has been a long and complex investigation that has lasted over two years and that has seen Steven Wedge successfully convicted.

"Throughout the case, Wedge pleaded his innocence saying that he had saved funds to purchase a £30,000 car. Although we believed that this was fabricated we had to wait for the court's verdict before we could start any further financial investigations. Steps were taken to ensure that assets suspected as being connected to this matter were retained by Wedge.

"We will always investigate people who have benefited financially from crime and have powers under the proceeds of crime act (POCA) that allows us to recover money or assets to the value of their criminal financial gain."