A prolific offender who stole or handled around £329,000 worth of vehicles in a five-month crime spree has been jailed for 10 years. John Connor Callaghan, 28, was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow after pleading guilty to 29 charges including theft, housebreaking, weapons, drugs and road traffic offences.

Callaghan tendered his guilty pleas at a preliminary hearing at Glasgow High Court on 23 September 2026, across two separate indictments. He was sentenced on 5 November 2026 by Lord Arthurson.

A five-month spree

The court heard that, between December 2024 and April 2025, Callaghan was criminally responsible for the theft or reset of approximately £329,000 worth of motor vehicles. The offences took place across Edinburgh, the Lothians and Forth Valley.

The 29 charges included one charge of theft, seven charges of reset and eight charges of theft by housebreaking. They also included two charges of dangerous driving, seven charges of driving while disqualified and seven charges of driving without insurance, along with a drugs offence, an offence of throwing drugs and phones over the wall into HMP Edinburgh, and weapons charges relating to three machetes.

Callaghan was arrested after being stopped by police officers in Edinburgh on 7 May 2025. A co-accused in the case will be sentenced at a later date.

“Committed and prolific offender”

Lord Arthurson told Callaghan he was plainly a committed and prolific offender, heedless of the misery and mayhem left in his wake, and that the public required protection from his criminal behaviour, which had escalated in its scale and scope. The judge said the principal objectives of the sentence were public protection, retribution and deterrence.

The court heard that Callaghan, aged 28, had accrued 29 groups of previous convictions, including three for theft by housebreaking, four for dangerous driving and seven for driving while disqualified. He had served 13 prior custodial sentences. His senior counsel told the court about his established family circumstances, his adverse childhood experiences and the benefit of his guilty pleas.

Ten years and a lifetime ban

On the principal indictment, covering the housebreaking and other dishonesty charges, Callaghan was given six years in prison, reduced from a headline term of eight years because of the timing and utility of his guilty pleas. Consecutive to that, he was given four years on the dangerous driving, weapons, drugs and prison charges, reduced from a headline period of five and a half years.

On the second indictment he was given a concurrent sentence of 30 months for the driving while disqualified charges, taking the total to 10 years in prison. The sentences were backdated to 8 May 2025, the date he was first remanded in custody.

Callaghan was also disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence for life.