Danny Lee, 25, was sentenced to six years and three months at Maidstone Crown Court on 8 July 2026 after a series of offences spanning five years, including robbing a delivery driver in Paddock Wood, dangerous driving at 60mph in a 30mph zone and stealing around £20,000 of equipment from farms in Tonbridge and Yalding.
Danny Lee, of Cogate Road, Paddock Wood, was jailed for six years and three months at Maidstone Crown Court on 8 July 2026 for robbery, dangerous driving, possession with intent to supply cocaine, handling stolen goods and burglary. The offences ran from April 2021 to September 2024 — part of that time while Lee was on bail for earlier charges.
The robbery was brazen enough. On 11 January 2024, Lee jumped into an idling delivery van in Ringden Avenue alongside a teenage boy while the driver was still at the wheel. As the van moved off, the driver tried to hold onto the teenager. Lee accelerated, forcing her to let go. The stolen van was tracked to a nearby address, where Lee, the teenage boy and two others — Elijah Smith and Danny Lee Senior — were seen carrying parcels inside before officers arrived. Lee ran. But his DNA on the steering wheel, gear lever and driver’s door gave him away.
Investigating officer Detective Constable Celia King said: “It was only sheer luck that the victim did not sustain serious injuries that day as it could have ended very differently.”
Not his finest hour, either, on 7 April 2021 — when Lee failed to stop for police in Mereworth while driving a stolen vehicle that had been reported stolen in Orpington. Sixty miles an hour in a 30 zone. A string of dangerous manoeuvres followed before he stopped on a mud track near Kent Street, then legged it across a field. Caught quickly. A search of the car turned up 13 deal bags of cocaine in a small plastic pot and cash in his coat pocket.
Then in September 2024, Lee admitted breaking into several farms in Tonbridge, stealing copper cables and tools. At one site in Yalding he took around £20,000 worth of irrigation equipment and power cables from a work shed. He was caught on camera selling some of it for scrap later that same day and arrested two days later.
Three others were sentenced separately over the van robbery. Danny Lee Senior, 46, also of Cogate Road, Paddock Wood, admitted theft of a motor vehicle and was jailed for 19 months at Maidstone Crown Court on 22 April 2026. Elijah Smith, 26, of Maple Leaf Drive, Lenham, received nine months suspended for 18 months, sentenced on 13 April 2026. A youth, who was 16 at the time of the offence, was charged with robbery and being carried in a vehicle without the owner’s consent. On 13 April he was handed a 12-month community order, a 15-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement, 50 hours of unpaid work and a £114 victim surcharge.