MEMBERS of an organised crime gang who plotted to steal almost £500,000 of diggers from building sites across the North-East have been ordered to pay back just £1.

Lee Harris, Robert Mason and Charles Tyers were “at the top of a criminal organisation” which repeatedly raided compounds and construction sites.

They are serving prison sentences totalling 15 years after targeting just over £480,000 worth of plant equipment in 21 thefts or attempted thefts in four months.

Their case came back to Teesside Crown Court yesterday - nine months after they received their jail terms - under Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) legislation.

The legislation is designed to strip criminals of assets gained through crime, and it was agreed by lawyers that the three crooks made £480,419 from their crimes.

Yet the court heard that the trio have little or nothing available to pay, and they were ordered to hand over a miniscule fraction of their ill-gotten gains.

Judge Simon Phillips, QC, ordered Harris, 46, of Craister Road, Stockton, and Mason, 38, of Siskin Close, in nearby Norton, must pay a nominal sum of £1.

Tyers, 39, of Thornaby Road, Thornaby, was ordered to pay £510 - money already in police hands after it was seized from a vehicle footwell on his arrest.

Judge Phillips made the confiscation orders and said the men had three months to pay or spend more time in prison - seven days for Mason and Harris and 21 days for Tyers.

Under the legislation, the authorities can try to recover more of the £480,000 later if they learn that the men have come into money or assets.

The gang went after vehicles worth up to £70,000 including JCBs, road rollers, excavators, diggers, a telehandler, a fork-lift and a dumper truck.

They raided sites in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Eaglescliffe, Wynyard, Billingham, Ingleby Barwick, Loftus and County Durham, the court heard last October.

The trio halted the crime spree - said to have caused “potentially disastrous delays” - only for a two-week Christmas holiday to Egypt, the court heard last October.

One of the thieves wore a hard hat and high-visibility vest as he reversed a stolen roller on to a trailer, and a lock was drilled out of a £30,000 digger to steal it from a housing development.

Tyers was jailed for five years and three months, Harris got five-and-a-half years, and Mason was given five years after they admitted conspiracy to steal.