TWO men who snatched goods worth £20,000 after smashing through a warehouse wall can have no complaints about their stiff sentences, judges have ruled.

Martin Adam Johnson, 46, and Daniel Burtak, 30, were part of a “highly organised” Bolton-based gang which targeted the Blakemore Cash-and-Carry, in Penrith.

Johnson, of Nut Street, Bolton, was involved in two “well planned and sophisticated” burglaries at Blakemore staged on March 26 and April 9 last year.

Burtak, of Kaber, near Kirkby Stephen, was only involved in the second raid, London’s Appeal Court heard.

The gang used drills to hammer through the external wall of the warehouse, explained Mrs Justice McGowan.

In the first burglary, they netted tobacco worth around £16,000. Goods valued at £20,000 were snatched in the second.

None of the goods stolen in the two brazen raids — just two weeks apart — was ever recovered.

Johnson was jailed for five and a half years at Carlisle Crown Court last December after he admitted two counts of burglary.

Burtak was given a four-year term for his role in the second burglary.

Both men’s cases reached the Appeal Court today as their lawyers challenged their jail terms.

But Mrs Justice McGowan, sitting with Lord Justice Hamblen and Judge Michael Topolski QC, ruled their punishments fair.

“We accept these were severe sentences,” she said.

But both men were were "career criminals" and “these offences were at the top of the range in terms of criminality," she concluded.

The appeals were dismissed.