A young entrepreneur has laid bare the direct and indirect impact of crime after having almost all of his equipment stolen in an overnight raid.
Thieves spent hours at a property along Darlington Road near Barnard Castle on Sunday, March 29, breaking into a van belonging to Evergreen Grounds, making off with thousands of pounds-worth of kit and causing extensive damage.
Owner Jack Roberts believes he is about £20,000 out of pocket, and the lack of tools meant he and his staff were unable to carry out many jobs that week.
The burglary came after the 20-year-old and his team had completed 96 hours of work over eight days and he was looking forward to having a day off.
He said: “I thought ‘brilliant, it is Monday, I haven’t got anything on the calendar’, so I had a lie in. I get a call at 8.30am saying ‘Jack this has been done’.
“It was like all my worst nightmares had come true – hearing all the stories from other gardeners and tradespeople – it was like oh my God, it’s actually happened to me.
“It was one of the worst drives to work that you can imagine.”
The former Green Lane Primary and Barnard Castle School pupil had a start in entrepreneurship at about age 14 when he knocked on neighbours’ doors offering to do pressure washing and mowing lawns to make pocket money.
By age 17 the business had grown extensively.
He said: “I dropped out of school because the gardening business started picking up more, mainly after I started driving. I saved up for a little £1,000 Daihatsu Terios – it was a compact 4×4, like a box on wheels. I used to ram that full of strimmers, lawnmowers, and weeding kit.”
By age 18 he took on two friends as workers.
He said: “I saved up for a white Nissan Navara doing gardens, and progressed on from there. I now have two qualified staff as a well as a few part-time workers.”
The theft hit hard. Among the items taken were strimmers, a new chipper, trailer ramps and hedge cutters. De Walt power tools such as drills, reciprocating saws, circular saws and impact drivers were also taken.
Jack said the thieves were first seen on CCTV cameras at about 1.30pm and the cameras were cut at about 3am.
He added: “They had a lot of time to go through the van and empty out the trailer that was stored out the back. There wasn’t a lot in it, but the trailer ramps were £500. They must have been there for hours.
“There must have been three-plus people to carry the 150kg chipper.”
After the theft he took to social media, not only to talk about the direct impact of losing tools and as a result losing jobs until they could be replaced, but also the indirect impact of crime.
He wrote: “What really gets me is that people often only see the money side of this sort of thing. They see stolen tools, damage, and repairs. But it goes so much deeper than that.
“It affects the work we are meant to be doing. It affects the stress on the team. It affects people’s hours, people’s routines, and people’s lives.
“We have also been helping a young lad from Houghall College, and this has impacted his ability to get the hours he needs for his course too.
“That is the part people don’t always think about. Crime does not just hit a business – it hits the people around it as well.
“After working long days and putting everything into trying to build something good, to be met with this is honestly heartbreaking.”
However, one of his friends shortly after the incident offered him advice in the form of “positivity in the face of adversity.”
Jack said: “I thought, you know what, that is a good quote to live by because you can weep and wallow. That is what got me through that day – it really did stick.”
The positivity came from an unexpected quarter, through Gillian Coates, who had looked after him more than decade earlier while he attended Dusk Till Dawn child care while at Green Lane.
She set up an online fundraiser, which, within an hour of going live raised more than £1,000.
Jack said: “There has been a horrible side, but there has been an incredible amount of support that has been overwhelming, I think it is about £2,100 now. It is a weird sort of contrast between the negative side of humanity and the positive side.
“Ideally if we do get back on our feet we will do some free garden tidy-ups for anyone who needs it. Ultimately the people of the wider community have helped
us out in a time of need, so if we can, in a couple of months’ time, help someone who needs a tidy up then why not, it is only fair.”
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