TATA STEEL THEFT: Three workers jailed over £1.2m tin plot at Llanelli’s Trostre works

Three Tata Steel workers who helped steal almost £1.2m of tin from the Trostre works in Llanelli have been jailed.

The men used their positions inside the plant to smuggle out nearly 49 tonnes of tin ingots over 15 months, melting them down and selling them to scrap merchants.

Thomas Ashford, Stewart Jones and Richard Jones each conspired with an outside man, Matthew Membury, in what a judge called “a very sophisticated operation.”

Sentencing the men at Swansea Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Paul Thomas KC said they had involved themselves in the theft of tonnes of tin on a “most considerable scale.”

The court heard the plot ran between July 2023 and October 2024, with the tin sold on to metal dealers and the profits split between the gang.

Prosecutor Craig Jones said the case involved a “persistent and sophisticated conspiracy” and a gross abuse of trust by employees at the site.

The scheme was set up by Ashford, a supervisor in the casthouse, who had ready access to tonnes of valuable tin.

But the key to it was Stewart Jones, a site security supervisor who controlled who came onto the works.

At first, Jones simply opened the gates to let Membury drive his van in at agreed times, before waving him back out once it was loaded.

He later created a cloned Tata ID pass in the false name of David Davies, allowing Membury to come and go as if he were a legitimate employee.

Once inside, Membury would drive to the casthouse, where Ashford loaded the ingots into his Ford Transit using a forklift truck.

Ashford also brought in one of the men he supervised — forklift driver Richard Jones, a former soldier — to help load the van on some occasions.

Each theft took only minutes, the court heard, and was timed for shift changes when there were plenty of comings and goings.

The conspiracy unravelled after suspicions were raised about ingots going missing shortly after being delivered, and Dyfed-Powys Police were called in to monitor the site.

Officers stopped Membury’s van at the plant gates at 6am on 11 October 2024, finding a load of tin ingots inside — along with three swords.

Ashford was arrested in his car in the casthouse car park, with the two others detained separately.

A financial investigation found £743,826 had been paid into Membury’s bank account in 68 deposits from various firms between July 2023 and September 2024.

He kept £339,770, passing £256,500 to Ashford, £85,500 to Stewart Jones and £62,000 to Richard Jones.

In a statement to the court, Tata said the thefts had a “significant and damaging” effect on the firm and on the morale of its 600 staff at the Llanelli site.

The company said it had spent tens of thousands of pounds improving security, and that workers were no longer allowed to park on site.

The judge said Ashford had initiated the thefts in a “gross abuse of trust” given his position as supervisor at the casthouse.

Of Stewart Jones, the judge said he had been “pivotal” to the operation as security supervisor — paid by Tata to prevent the very thing he was doing, in what amounted to a “betrayal” of the firm.

Mitigating for Stewart Jones, Matt Murphy said his client was “wholeheartedly remorseful” and had been in significant debt at the time, when “the attractiveness of the enterprise was too much to resist.”

David Singh, for Ashford, said his client had been candid and admitted the scheme was his idea, while his “difficult background” provided context to his behaviour without excusing it.

Adam Roxborough, for Richard Jones, said his client had served seven years with the Royal Welch Fusiliers with an “exemplary” record, was involved only on an “ad hoc” basis, and had taken part “because it was easy money.”

Thomas Ashford, 35, of Tairgwaith, Brynamman, and Stewart Jones, 56, of Llanelli, were each jailed for three years and four months.

Richard Jones, 39, of Townhill, Swansea, was given a 20-month sentence suspended for two years, with 250 hours of unpaid work and a three-month curfew.

The court heard Ashford and Stewart Jones will serve between 30 and 40 per cent of their sentences in custody before being released on licence.

Membury, 32, of Landore, Swansea, refused to attend the hearing and will be sentenced at a later date.

He is already serving a 32-month prison sentence imposed in January for his part in a separate revenge arson plot, in which a man’s car was set alight in Swansea Vale over a business grievance.

The judge said Membury’s sentence for the Tata conspiracy would not begin until he appears in court to receive it.

The stolen tin has never been recovered, and a proceeds of crime investigation will now examine the men’s finances.

After the case, a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said it had been “a carefully orchestrated operation which included the use of a fake Tata ID pass,” and a gross breach of trust by employees, some in managerial or security positions, that cost the company more than £1m.