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An officer from Britain’s version of the FBI was left red-faced after an opportunist thief pinched belongings from his unlocked car.

Phones, police radio kit, the officer’s ID card, personal documents and training notes were stolen from the unmarked National Crime Agency (NCA) car as it was parked at Knutsford services on the M6.

Peter Mark McHugh, 43, of Pennard Avenue, Huyton, was last week given a 12-week curfew after admitting theft from a vehicle.

He claimed in his police interview that he had seen the officer leave his grey Vauxhall Astra, noticed that the car was unlocked and “succumbed to temptation”.

The NCA insisted that the officer had pressed his key fob to lock the car. However it is believed his house keys, diary, wallet, driver’s licence, bank statements and home-addressed letters were also nabbed, the Liverpool Echo reports .

A source said: “You couldn’t make it up. This was a vehicle owned by the National Crime Agency, the so-called ‘British FBI’, put in place to fight the likes of terrorists and serious, serious gangsters – and yet they don’t seem to have grasped the basics of crime prevention.

“The officer left the vehicle unattended with a bag in it.”

The officer was meeting colleagues at Knutsford services, on the M6, for a debrief after a training day.

The theft happened at around 3.15pm, on August 12, but the officer said he did not notice the bag had gone missing until 5pm.

“The worrying thing is that it took our eagle-eyed sleuth two hours to notice,” the source added.

McHugh, who has a number of convictions, but none in the past four years, was arrested at his home after an investigation by the NCA and Cheshire Police . All the items were recovered.

McHugh pleaded guilty at Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court on Thursday. He told police that he had parked at the services to use the toilet and struck after noticing that the toggle switch was raised inside the car door.

McHugh said he repositioned his Citroen Berlingo to obstruct the view and took one of a number of bags inside the car.

He denied using tools to break in to the NCA vehicle, which was undamaged.

A NCA spokesman said no confidential documents were taken.

He added: “The NCA has strict protocols for protecting operational equipment and expects the highest standards of its officers. Any breaches of those standards are treated with the utmost seriousness and are investigated robustly.”