A Moray man raided car wash facilities at a Huntly service station after stealing licence plates from a Lossiemouth garage.
James Scott, 31, stole registration plates from a Land Rover Discovery from MT Autos on December 16 before attaching them to another vehicle.
He then used that vehicle to travel to Strathbogie filling station in Huntly where he raided the jet car wash service there sometime between 11pm on December 17 and 6am on December 18.
Accompanied by another person, Scott broke into the machine and stole £85.42 from it and also emptied and broke into the garage car vacuum there as well.
He wielded an iron bar during the raid, which he used to damage the CCTV camera at Strathbogie.
Depute Fiscal Kevin Corrins described to Elgin Sheriff Court the amount of evidence that had been been found that pointed the finger at Scott for his part in the crime.
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He said: “CCTV footage from the service station showed the accused show up in a Range Rover Freelander which had the recently stolen number plates on it.
“He alighted from the car which had no L plates on it and he was not insured on and another person also exited the vehicle.
“Between them they opened the coin-operated washing machine by breaking and after noticing the CCTV camera, he struck it with an implement and it then fell to the ground.
“Afterwards, an iron bar was recovered from his vehicle which had the DNA of the accused on and a similar hat to the one that was seen on CCTV was found in Scott’s house.”
Scott was also found to have similar clothing on the CCTV footage and eight 50p pieces were discovered on him as well.
Defence solicitor Carolyn Leckie blamed her client’s drug abuse for the crimes committed in December last year.
She said: “My client is pleading guilty at the first diet of the case and is currently on a drug testing treatment testing order.
“These offences were committed in December 2017 and were underpinned by my client’s drug abuse.”
Scott pleaded guilty to stealing license plates and forcing open three lockfast coin-operated utilities to steal money from.
Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov remanded Scott in custody for a month while a criminal justice report is written.
