An Ipswich lorry driver who stole magnesium ingots worth £37,000 from his workplace to settle gambling debts has been jailed for 22 months.

Steven Kimble let himself into the premises of Charterlink Worldwide Ltd, in The Drift, Ipswich at night and loaded 16 pallets of ingots on to a lorry and drove off with them.

He was arrested after he was caught on a neighbouring company’s CCTV arriving at the depot in his blue BMW in the early hours of the morning, followed by a large lorry leaving the premises and returning three hours later.

When Kimble’s bosses checked his lorry, magnesium shavings were found on the surface of the trailer and a tracking system showed it had travelled along the A120 to the Braintree area, said Daniel Taylor, prosecuting.

He said the alarm system at the depot was deactivated some time after midnight and reset later that morning.

At 6.30am that morning Kimble sent a text message to his employers saying he wouldn’t be at work that day because he was ill.

Kimble, 42, of Stradbroke Road, Ipswich admitted theft on October 16 last year and breach of a suspended 18 week prison sentence and was jailed for a total of 22 months.

Sentencing him, Judge Martyn Levett said the theft would have required “relatively substantial” planning.

He said 80 hours of management time was used to investigate the theft and his employers had suffered financially as a result.

Neil Saunders, for Kimble, said his client had committed the offence after running up gambling debts.

He said the people Kimble owed money to put a value of £4,000 on the magnesium ingots and he had not made any money from the offence.

Mr Saunders said the burglary was always going to be discovered because of the shavings left in his lorry and CCTV footage.

He said Kimble had other debts totalling more than £24,000.