Overview
- Three Tata Steel employees admitted conspiring with an outside associate to remove almost 49 tonnes of tin ingots from the Trostre works and sell them to scrap merchants.
- Swansea Crown Court sentenced Thomas Ashford and Stewart Jones to three years and four months in prison and gave Richard Jones a 20-month sentence suspended for two years while the outside associate, Matthew Membury, awaits sentencing.
- Police financial evidence showed £743,826 was paid into Membury’s Lloyds account, with £339,770 retained by him and transfers of £256,500 to Ashford, £85,500 to Stewart Jones and £62,000 to Richard Jones.
- Tata Steel said the thefts, valued at about £1.19 million, caused significant financial loss, damaged operations and harmed the morale of roughly 600 staff at the Llanelli site and disrupted the supply of tin used for cans and packaging.
- The stolen goods were not recovered and lawyers may explore further proceedings, leaving the company to tighten site security and the wider industry to reassess controls on raw-metal inputs.