A MAN who stole railway cabling, costing Network Rail more than £400,000, has been jailed for four months.

Reece Finley, 22, of Young Street, Blackburn, was caught on CCTV installed at the site at Taylor Street sidings near the town after an earlier incident where an electrical fault was reported.

On investigation British Transport Police officers discovered that a fire that had been started which had burnt through cables, exposing inner wires.

The damage resulted in subsequent power and signalling problems in the area which led to delays of more than 78 hours on the mainline, at a cost of £416,000 to Network Rail.

A week after this incident, on August 28 last year, Finley was caught on camera at the same spot, removing cabling.

In a police interview, Finley admitted returning to the site on a number of occasions and removing cable, before burning it to strip the protective sheathing and selling it onto a scrap yard whose name he refused to divulge.

Detective Inspector Tony Fitzpatrick said: “As demonstrated by the damage caused by Finley’s actions, severe delays were caused to the railway system which resulted in costs of £433,228 to Network Rail.”