A MAN has admitted carrying out an audacious theft from the site of building work on a bypass on the A737 in North Ayrshire more than six years ago.

Sean McMurdo, from Kilbirnie, nicked more than a dozen batteries from heavy plant machinery at the site near Dalry.

Four separate thefts were carried out in the space of three weeks, Kilmarnock Sheriff Court was told.

The 37-year-old pleaded guilty to forcing open locked battery boxes on the machines and stealing batteries from within.

The court heard that a total of 63 batteries were stolen, by McMurdo and others, on four separate occasions between February 22 and March 13, 2018 - some 15 months before the new route was opened to traffic.

The heavy plant machinery was stored at the site overnight by workers involved in constructing the vital road, with those responsible using tools to remove them.

The court was later told that McMurdo was responsible for 17 of the batteries which were stolen.

McMurdo, of Auchenhove Crescent, was identified by a co-accused, and by a witness who was present when the batteries were sold on.

McMurdo’s solicitor said his client was the captain of a langoustine boat operating out of Gourock, and that McMurdo had “a bad cocaine habit” at the time of the offence.

Sheriff Murdoch McTaggart deferred sentence on McMurdo for background reports, and told the Crown that he wanted to know more details about what their evidence would have been if the case had gone to trial.

McMurdo was released on bail and will return to court for sentencing at a later date.

The Dalry bypass cost £31.2 million and was opened to traffic in May 2019, seven months ahead of schedule.

It was originally given the green light by the then Scottish Executive in 2006, when it had a price tag of £18m.