Corby career burglar carried out £63,000 designer gear smash-and-grab at Rushden Lakes Flannels

James Patrick McNamee, known as Jamie, stole £63,000 of designer clothing after smashing his way into Flannels at Rushden Lakes.

He got away with bags of high-value loot, but was caught later when his fingerprints were found on a mini used as a getaway vehicle.

The burglary was one of a series of 22 high-value crimes allegedly carried out by a Corby-led gang over a two-year period across the country. Those men were tried at court last year but will now face a retrial after the proceedings collapsed.

McNamee, of Chaucer Close, Corby, was not part of that wider conspiracy.

The 41-year-old, who works as a hot tub installer, turned up to Northampton Crown Court on Friday for sentence wearing a CP Company T-shirt, Nike Air Jordans, and carrying a huge Louis Vuitton holdall ready for a prison term.

The 5ft 4in thief has a reputation as a burglar-for-hire, providing a reliable ‘service’ for local gangs. He admitted one count of burglary.

Appearing for sentence at Northampton Crown Court on Friday (June 7), prosecutor Diane Mundill said McNamee went to Rushden Lakes on the afternoon of September 22, 2021, for a reconnaissance mission.

He walked around the store with two alleged accomplices, Barry Mitchell and William Castle, taking photographs, and as they left McNamee pinched a t-shirt.

A mini was then seen on ANPR cameras travelling to Corby, containing large white polythene bags. That same mini then made the return journey just after 10pm on the same evening.

Ms Mundill said: “They went to the side of Flannels. Mr McNamee’s accomplice smashed the glass and both entered the store with poly bags.”

They spent two minutes pulling clothing off racks and stuffing it into their bags before driving the car back to Corby.

But two days later, Barry Mitchell is said to have returned to Rushden Lakes Flannels to go shopping and was recognised by staff and arrested.

The mini was seized in Corby and found to have one of McNamee’s fingerprints on it. There were also sticky labels on the number plate where fake plates had been attached. Discarded clothing labels and bags were allegedly found at a business connected to the gang.

McNamee went on the run, and police issued an appeal to find him in the Northants Telegraph.

He was eventually arrested in December 2021 as he was being discharged from Kettering General Hospital. Messages downloaded from his phone showed he was annoyed that police had publicly appealed for help to locate him.

In February 2022 he was again arrested on separate charges and officers saw him wearing the same coat that he had been wearing on the day he entered Flannels.

Ms Mundill said: “This was an alleged larger conspiracy and he was ‘hired’ to be on the ground.

"There is no evidence he was part of the larger conspiracy.”

McNamee said the items he stole were sold for £4,000 and he received £1,500.

The court was told that he 57 previous convictions – with 36 of them for theft. His commercial burglary record stretches back to 1996 when he was just 14. He was then before the courts in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011 and 2012.

After McNamee was first arrested for the Flannels burglary, he committed more offences within a month of release. On January 9, 2023, he committed an assault, then there were further driving charges and assaults in Scotland in March 2023.

Mitigating, Dan Green, said: “He’s clearly not the mastermind behind the offence.

"He’s going as an extra body.”

He said that McNamee had got involved with the plot after his brother Stephen died and he became addicted to Xanax and Valium.

"He was masking his grief,” said Mr Green.

"It led him down the road of associating with the wrong type of people.

"He has no convictions for similar offences since the burglary he was sentenced for in 2012. He’s no longer using drugs and is a completely different person.”

Back in 2008 McNamee was part of a gang that took part in a terrifying machete raid at the Argos Clearance Warehouse in Corby. Along with a group of men he stole £30,000 before boasting about it to pals. His DNA was found in the getaway vehicle and he was arrested at Heathrow airport after spending his share of the cash on a luxury Thai holiday.

But at that 2009 trial, McNamee claimed that he ‘had retired’ from burglary, was now a professional poker player and that the money had come from winnings. The trial heard how he had placed bets of more than £100,000 at local bookies in the previous two years.

He was eventually found guilty of robbery and converting criminal property and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years – a sentence that he unsuccessfully appealed at London’s Court of Appeal. None of the other gang members were ever caught.

In 2019 he was among a group charged with attempted murder after a man was shot several times in Stone House Mews in the Old Village. Those charges were eventually dropped.

Sentencing, Recorder Sunil Khanna said that he had taken into account McNamee’s mitigation as well as his guilty plea.

He gave him a two-year jail term, suspended for two years. He must complete 100 hours of unpaid work as well as 15 rehabilitation requirement days.

- McNamee’s alleged accomplices in the Flannels burglary, William Castle and Barry Mitchell, who deny the offence, will stand trial next year.