1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202 
Hijack warning and the driver's phone just rings...
Page 66
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Simon Coulston reports on a roller coaster of a month — from the birth of a son (congratulations!) to having a truck hijacked.
Dominating my thoughts this month has been this wonderful news:on 1 July 2005 my wife and I became the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy who we called Arron James and to my relief both mother and son are doing well.
So, hack to the transport. As a result of the above! took on a new driver to allow myself to concentrate on streamlining the business and also my new family.
First up for discussion was diesel. I need a good supplier offering a fair price and reasonable credit terms, which as a newly limited company is not an easy thing to find (of course Mr Brown isn't exactly helping either).
If memory serves it was Monday 12 July and I was booking in work for the following day One of the jobs was for a regular customer which involved our new driver loading up and running to Lancashire the same day.
As planned the driver and vehicle arrived at 7.30am to collect the consignment.We discovered after the event that while loading was taking place every movement was being watched.
It would have been about 30 minutes into the driver's journey when I received a call from my customer advising me in no uncertain terms to contact our driver as they believed he was being followed by a black car containing three faces familiar to all those on the trading estate.
Why on earth the security people didn't call the police with their suspicions I will never know.
My instinctive reaction was to contact my driver immediately but his phone just kept ringing. I must have tried half a dozen times at least, hoping that he'd just stopped for a sandwich.
But at lunchtime I got the call I had been dreading from West Midlands police confirming that the vehicle and its load had been hijacked. Naturally my first thoughts were for the driver's safety. but running a close second was my livelihood.
After managing to speak to the driver I was relieved to learn he was OK apart from a minor knock to the head.According to his account of events the black car had pulled alongside the truck indicating that the rear doors were open. So with the safety of both the public and the load in mind he stopped the truck and went to investigate.
As he approached the back of the trailer it soon became apparent that the doors were not open and as the truck began to creep away the reality began dawning on him. •