A ROBOTIC lawnmower dubbed Clever Trevor grassed up hapless thieves who decided to pinch him from a hotel’s neatly trimmed lawns.

However, they were soon cut down to size by Trevor’s artificial intelligence – which alerted the law to where he was taken and linked the crooks to other alleged thefts in the area.

Trevor issued an SOS shortly after he was nabbed from outside the Allerton Court Hotel, in Darlington Road, Northallerton , late last Wednesday night.

“He has a tracking device on board and he sends information back to a mobile phone to say where he is,” explained hotel owner, Martin Coleman.

“Within hours they (the police) had hunted him down to a place in Hartlepool .”

It’s understood that the Husqvana-built machine, nicknamed Trevor by the hotel staff, was also able to log locations the vehicle he was in visited later on the town’s industrial estate, the scene of other alleged thefts.

“He’s really clever is Trevor. The thing is, whoever took him only had half of him. He has a docking station which he goes back to to charge up, so there was no way he would have worked without it.

“Obviously whoever took him didn’t know that.”

The £1,500 cutting edge machine, supplied by nearby garden and farm supply store Sam Turner’s, was using the Allerton Court’s prominent location to show off its independent grass cutting abilities to would-be buyers.

Charles Turner said: “As soon as Trevor was taken he sent us a text saying he was outside his boundary, so we knew immediately something was wrong, and we were able to tell the police exactly where he was at all times. There was no hiding place, this really is a smart lawn mower.

“We’ve sold a few this season, even though it’s been an awful summer.

Trevor just gets on with cutting the grass, whatever the weather.”