A MECHANIC who hoarded stolen cars and a cocaine dealer made nearly £100,000 illegally between them – but have now been ordered to pay back their illicit gains.

Mark Trepass and Rowland Tough were both jailed this year and have now been forced to hand over their available assets – nearly £25,000 of cash and goods.

Trepass, a mechanic, tried to flee police in a high-speed chase with his four-month-old baby daughter in the car with him when officers spied him driving a stolen Nissan Qashqai.

Police raided his industrial unit in Hartford House, Great Lever Bolton and found £30,000 of stolen cars.

Trepass was caught and admitted eight counts of handling stolen goods, before being jailed in August this year for 27 months.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing on Friday, December 12, Trepass, aged 31, of Norfolk Road, Hindley, was found to have made £55,000 from his crimes.

The court ordered him to pay back all identified assets, which had been frozen by police before the hearing to prevent him disposing of them.

He had to his name £17,314 of cash, a vehicle and a static caravan in Blackpool.

In a separate hearing on Tuesday, December 16, Bolton Crown Court was told that Tough, aged 36 of Dorchester Road, Manchester, had made £44,000 illegally.

In March 2013, search warrants were executed at his home address and garages.

The search revealed drugs and cocaine, valued at more than £4,000, cash totalling £1,500 and lists of debtors which amounted to nearly £30,000.

Tough was jailed for four years for supplying cocaine, and he must now pay up his £6,779.36 of available assets, which are cash and a BMW car.

If Tough fails to pay up, he must serve an extra four months in prison.

Tony Wood, divisional financial investigator for Bolton, said: "Here was a man starting out to run a business and who got sucked into the criminal side of the business by accepting offers of stolen cars and seeing an opportunity to make easy money.

"Sadly for him and his family, not only was he caught for doing this, but he now finds that as well as losing his liberty, all that he owns will be taken from him as well.

"People who make money from criminality must realise that the POCA is there to take that money back off them. This is one such example of how that law works."

  • The court lists Trepass as having an alternatively spelled surname as an alias - spelled Treppas.