A PROFESSIONAL criminal funded a jet-setting lifestyle by allegedly master-minding burglaries across Devon which cost businesses, including those in Tavistock, Hatherleigh, Winkleigh and Moretonhampstead, hundreds of thousands of pounds, a jury has heard.

Exeter Crown Court was told that Reginald Soper was claiming Jobseekers' Allowance and living in a caravan but had been on two holidays to Jamaica, two to Cyprus, and trips to Mexico, Egypt and Majorca in the four years before his arrest.

He formed part of a gang which carried out 54 raids on jewellers and small businesses all over Devon.

The other members were his older brother Percy, who lived at the same caravan site near Taunton, his stepson Daniel Small and his friend Nicky Christian, who both lived in Plymouth.

The group never left fingerprints and planned their raids to ensure there was no evidence to link them to the burglaries. Their most frequent targets were firms with units on small trading estates and stretched from Plymouth in the west to Beer and Dunster in the east and from Churchstow in the south to Hatherleigh and South Molton in the north.

They caused extensive damage, smashing their way through walls or fire exit doors and used tools to remove safes, the court heard.

They wore masks or disguises to hide their faces so they could not be recognised on CCTV. The total value of the goods stolen was tens of thousands of pounds, including £50,000 from five jewellery shop raids.

The court was told how they were arrested after a five-month police operation codenamed Churchill in the summer of 2012.

Detectives used CCTV footage, shoe prints, DNA from the handle of tools, number plate recognition, mobile phone evidence and even a hidden camera in a safe to link the men to many of the offences.

They are linked to the rest by the use of vehicles and the similarities in method. In many cases the stolen cars and vans were abandoned or burned near the scenes of the raids.

Reginald Soper, aged 50, and his brother Percy Soper, aged 55, both of the Otterford caravan park at Culmhead, near Taunton, Somerset, Daniel Small, aged 24, of Linketty Lane, Plympton, and Nick Christian, aged 24, of Bernice Terrace, Plymouth, all deny conspiracy to burgle.

Reginald Soper, Small and Christian all deny two counts of conspiracy, including one dealing with the raids on jewellers while Percy Soper only faces one, dealing with the rest of the burglaries.

Donald Tait, prosecuting, told the jury: 'This case is about burglaries and there were a lot of them. Our case is that these defendants, and the two Soper brothers in particular, are professional career criminals with no legitimate source of income.

'They specialised in the burglary of commercial premises and Reginald Soper, with the assistance of Small and Christian, also burgled antique and jewellery shops.

'They planned these offences in advance, wore disguises to avoid recognition. They were forensically aware and left very little to link them with these offences.

'The Sopers knew the countryside of North Devon like the back of their hands. They used this to stash stolen property in very remote locations so they could come back at a later time for it.

'According to tax records Reginald Soper had no income since at least 2006/7 and has been claiming Jobseekers' Allowance. The same applies to his brother.'

The trial continues.