Car thief who took two cars in nineteen days of July is jailed for a year and nine months

South Wales Police say Liam McDonald, 35, of no fixed abode, was sentenced to 91 weeks, a year and nine months, at Cardiff Crown Court on 4 September and banned from driving for three years. He had pleaded guilty to nine counts across six offences: aggravated vehicle taking and dangerous driving, taking a motor vehicle without the owner's consent, two counts of driving while disqualified, using a motor vehicle on a road or public place without third-party insurance, and two counts each of theft from a motor vehicle and theft from a shop.

Four dates in July

The spree began on 8 July with five jars of coffee taken from a B&M in Leckwith, the court heard. On 10 July a car was reported stolen from a Cardiff address. CCTV enquiries identified a man on a bike, later known to be McDonald, and the car was found abandoned two days later between Sloper Road and Leckwith Road. On 21 July he took two bottles of whiskey worth 119 pounds from a Waitrose in Pontprennau. It ended on 27 July, when a 999 call reported a car just stolen. Roads policing officers searching for it saw it driving towards the officers, McDonald drove away dangerously, and after an authorised pursuit officers boxed the car in and arrested him.

What the published record shows

In the twelve months to July 2026 South Wales Police closed 1,097 vehicle crime cases within a mile of Cardiff city centre. Closed means the force has recorded an outcome, whether or not anyone was identified. In 1,006 of those 1,097, 92 per cent, nobody was ever identified. That leaves 91 cases where a suspect was known: 30 ended with a charge or a court, which is 2.7 per cent of everything closed and 33 per cent of the cases where a suspect was known, and 61 ended with a suspect known and no prosecution. A further 186 vehicle crimes recorded in the year, of 1,283, were still open. The 2.7 per cent is the 17th highest of the 24 Welsh towns with enough closed cases to rate, where first is the highest; Cover tracks 30 towns, and six had too few vehicle crime cases to rank on that measure. Across every crime type the Home Office publishes an outcome for, Cardiff charged or took to court in 14.8 per cent of 10,752 closed cases, the 11th highest of the 30. These are the figures as published by the Home Office on 4 September 2026; its July release has since restated some earlier months, so a reader querying data.police.uk today will find the splits have moved.

What it cannot say about this case

The record runs to July 2026 and McDonald was sentenced in September, so it cannot show how his July offences were closed; that outcome can only appear in a later release. His pleas were to vehicle taking and to theft from a vehicle, and the dataset's vehicle crime category covers both.

Investigating officer PC Paul Griffiths of the Cardiff neighbourhood team said: "McDonald committed a spate of offences that had a big impact on the people and businesses in his communities. He also put people on the road at risk that day driving in the manner that he did and without a license. I'm pleased to see this sentence handed down today."

Correction, 6 September 2026: an earlier version of this piece said Liam McDonald pleaded guilty to eight charges. The South Wales Police release lists nine counts across six offences, and the count is now nine.