A farmer whose tractor was stolen and rammed into a house says the ordeal has cost him both emotionally and financially.
Ian Tate said the first he knew of the theft from his farm near Yarm was the police knocking on his door at 03:00 BST on 9 May to say his tractor was embedded in a house nine miles (14.5km) away in Middlesbrough.
The thief, 28-year-old Nathan Blagg, has been jailed for more than seven years, with Teesside Crown Court hearing he targeted the family home of a rival who had urinated on his father’s grave.
Tate told the BBC he was thousands of pounds out of pocket, adding: “It’s the way of the world at the moment, nothing is safe.”
“Farming is a very difficult job now,” he said, adding: “It’s the cost of everything.”
The court had heard Blagg and several associates went to Tate’s farm at Kirklevington at about 23:30 BST on 8 May.