A veteran Cumbrian firefighter's 30-year career is in ruins after he was exposed as a thief, who plundered equipment worth more than £50,000 from his employer.

Police officers and fire chiefs were left staggered when a raid on the Cockermouth home of Michael Todhunter exposed the scale of his dishonesty. Crammed into his garage was a collection of more than 500 pieces of fire service equipment, including thermal imaging cameras, defibrillators, and respirators.

He was yesterday jailed for theft and fraud.

The staggering scale of the thefts carried out by Todhunter - who was honoured for his work in the Cockermouth floods - was today revealed for the first time.

Unbeknown to his bosses, the crew manager was regularly pilfering huge amounts of equipment from work and then selling it through the online trading site eBay.

As the disgraced 50-year-old started a 16 month jail sentence yesterday, Cumbria County Council confirmed that he has been sacked.

At Carlisle Crown Court Todhunter, of Laureates Lane, Cockermouth, admitted two thefts and one fraud.

Kim Whittlestone, prosecuting, said the alarm was raised by a sales manager from Global Respiratory, a firm which regularly sold kit to Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service.

The worker became concerned after realising that respirator masks which his firm had sold to Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service were being sold off on eBay.

An investigation traced the eBay account to Todhunter.

Police raided the defendant’s home on October 15 last year and everybody present - including senior firefighters - was shocked by the quantity of stolen kit they found.

The barrister provided the court with a complete list of the equipment found in Todhunter's garage (see the photo images of the lists which appear above with this story).

Comprising around 250 separate kinds of kit, and more than 500 individual items, the list ranged from inexpensive goods such as hammers, drills, and wellington boots, to more costly items, such as thermal imaging cameras worth more than £22,000 and a £200 defibrillators.

Among the stolen haul were:

* defibrillators

* fire extinguishers

* step ladders

* various torches

* wire cutters

* a rubble bucket

* allen keys

* extension leads

* a screw driver set

* a £300 laptop

* a tool box

* bolt croppers

* flood lights

* a fire blanket

* a Dewalt heat gun

* shovels

* crow bars

* buckets

* an oxygen cylinder and bag

* respirator masks

* firefighter axes and helmets

* sets of breathing apparatus

* a sat nav kit

* a Hilti charger unit

* a barcode printer

* and flood light kits.

Miss Whittlestone said: "The eBay account of the defendant had been operating since 2002 and it is clear from the initial access to the site that items were being sold on a regular basis.

"The extent of what has been sold we are unable to say but given the amount seized and the admissions by the defendant in interview this has been an ongoing enterprise for some considerable time."

The prosecutor continued: "Whilst the odd item could be described as old the significant majority of items were currently used by Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service, either at the station of on the fire appliances themselves."

The barrister read a statement from a senior fire service chief, Group Manager Stuart Hook.

“The impact of his actions have been far-reaching and are still ongoing,” said Mr Hook.

“We have suffered a significant financial cost to replace the stolen equipment, as well as the aftermath of colleagues feeling so let down.”

He said the loss of the equipment had affected the ability of Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service to carry out its operations. At the time of the thefts, PPE kit was hard to source because of the pandemic.

It was bought to protect the defendant’s colleagues, he said.

Mr Hook said that much of the stolen kit - such has the thermal imaging cameras, respirators and the defibrillators - was essential equipmenht for the fire service’s day-to-day operations.

Sean Harkin, defending, said that Todhunter had expressed genuine remorse for his crimes and that he had now as a result lost the career that he began when he was 19.

Todhunter had hitherto been a man of “positive good character,” who raised cash for charity and who had worked on disasters such as the Cockermouth flooding in 2009 and the horrific Keswick school bus crash that happened the following year.

Mr Harkin added: "He always wanted to be a fireman and he fulfilled that ambition. He has now effectively lost everything - and his ability to make a living. He's ashamed.

"Whatever sentence is imposed, that shame will not go away."

Jailing Todhunter for 16 months, Judge Nicholas Barker said the fire service had been the defendant’s life.

But at the time of the thefts, said the judge, the service had been coping with the pandemic and the defendant's thefts had undermined its effectiveness.

"This was a determined campaign by you,” said the judge.

“This was no opportunistic, fleeting event... this equipment, removed from the service and recovered from your garage, was taken over an extensive period of time.

"I have to bear in the mind the nature of the organisation you stole from. It was a breach of trust over many, many months.

"There must have been many, many individual acts of removal...In my judgement, it is simply not possible to pass a sentence other than an immediate custodial sentence.

The admitted offences were committed between April 30, 2019, and October 15 last year - though the judge said it was likely that more goods were stolen that those found in his garage, said the judge.

A Cumbria County Council spokesman said of Todhunter: "His actions displayed an unacceptable breach of trust when he was placed in a position of responsibility, handling essential resources and personal protective equipment for our Fire & Rescue Service.

"We welcome this outcome today. Someone who puts greed and their own personal gain ahead of Cumbria’s communities at a time of crisis will not be tolerated.”

The total value of the goods found in Todhunter's garage was £50,515.