A man near Birmingham, U.K. was given jail time for stealing an Aston Martin supercar after he said he was abandoned by friends and needed a ride home.
Jason Boon, 45 said he was out with two friends on May 5 when he got into a dispute with them and they left him near Gaydon, Warwickshire, almost 30 miles southeast of Birmingham.
Not knowing where he was, he went to higher ground where, according to his lawyer, he saw bright lights in the distance.
Those lights were an Aston Martin factory, and because of a fluke with the security system, he was able to get inside.
No one challenged him as he entered the factory’s office, where he found keys and key fobs to the factory’s vehicles that were in the final stages of production. He picked out the keys to a $261,000 DB11 supercar, and was not only able to start the car, but was able to get out of the warehouse and through the front gates.
![An Aston Martin DB11 (DJ Quietstorm/Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0]](http://https://i.ntd.com/assets/uploads/2017/07/2017_Aston_Martin_DB11_32780206435-580x486.jpg)
They said he handed over the keys, which had a fob for a different car, and paperwork for it that his lawyer said he took as “trophies,” according to the Birmingham Mail.
The car had scuff marks and damage to the rim. While the damage was minor, it was enough to make it unsellable as a new car, and because there was no registered owner, it couldn’t be sold as used either.
“‘It was the kind of damage which on some vehicles could have been described as limited,” Warwick Crown Court Recorder Alastair Smith said. “But because of the status of the vehicle, the result of your actions is that this 200,000 pound vehicle has been written off [by the company].”
Boon pled guilty to burglary, aggravated vehicle taking, and having no insurance.
Smith sentenced him to 10 months in prison deferred for two years, ordered him to pay a 200 pound fine, and revoked his driver’s license for 12 months.
Smith said his sentence would have been longer if the theft had been planned.
“‘But your actions were impulsive in a unique set of circumstances,” Smith said, according to the Daily Mail.
Boon, who was unemployed at the time, found being in the factory “100 percent pure heaven” the Birmingham Mail quoted his lawyer as saying.