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trucks FREE in Crimeline NEXT WEEK For further details ring: 0778 380324 • CM guarantees free publicity for any operator unfortunate enough to become a victim of truck crime. It may not get your truck, trailer or components back, but at least it could make life harder for the thieves attempting to use or sell your property.
• Thieves moved another truck to take a Daf 3300 from Birmingham used-truck dealer Stadium Commercials, costing the company nearly £7,000.
They moved a small rigid vehicle away from the site entrance and broke the steering lock on the sleeper-cabbed Daf 6x2. There were about 30 vehicles in the yard.
Sales director Phil Wagstaff says: "The police say that if they can get into banks, what's to stop them in commercial vehicle compounds... it seems that it's something you've got to live with."
The Daf's registration is C469 XEX and the chassis number is 268100. It is white and has alloy wheels. The back of the cab is "very untidy".
Contact: 021-331 4004/5.
• Two owner-drivers were hit by thieves on April 30 when both lost their tippers from Earls Barton Quarry in Northamptonshire.
Both of the vehicles were spotted going south near Junction 9 of the M1 at 23:15hrs the same night.
One owner, Brixworth-based B Warner, says: "Both of us are owner-drivers who have worked our whole lives to make an honest living — suddenly overnight, through no negligence on our part, our whole livelihood has been taken away."
Warner's Seddon Atkinson 301 8x4 has a green and white cab with an alloy Neville Charrold body (pictured below). The registration is D795 BNH, with chassis number 88881648 and engine number 23510712.
Owner-driver John Vidler has lost two new contracts because of the theft of his truck from its usual parking space in Lenham, near Maidstone.
Vidler, who runs to Italy each week, lost his Mercedes 1644, registration E470 UKP, on 5 May from the transport cafe at Lenham on the A20. The thieves left the trailer which had a valuable load.
Vidler's wife Joyce says: "It's always been fine. The cafe has a guard dog which barks like mad all the time and the cafe owner watches out for vehicles."
The Merc is white with red stripes. Its chassis number is 645192225341957 with engine number 44295120019302. Contact: John Vidler on (0622) 850506.
• Thieves have taken trucks and crane equipment worth more than £300,000 in an overnight looting session in the North-East, Doncaster-based Humber Services reports losses of around £250,000 after its only vehicles, two Mercedes 1625s fitted with 190 Hiab cranes and a Mercedes 1726 with a 190 Hiab, were stolen from the company's yard on the night of May 4/5.
Within hours, Scunthorpe-based Skelton Transport Services also lost a Mercedes 1617 which was fitted with a Hiab crane. The criminals had tried to take two other vehicles fitted with Hiabs, but flat batteries prevented them. However they managed to steal around £6,000-worth of tyres from a container. The total value of that theft was about £66,000.
According to the two companies the thieves were highly professional. They used a special device to break through the locks — there was no broken glass.
Now Humber Services managing director Geoff Evans plans to spend around £20,000 on tighter security at his yard after the chain on the gate failed to stop the thieves.
He says: "We also parked the vehicles so that they would block the yard entrance. It never occurred to me that someone would take three of the vehicles... I feel as sick as a seagoing parrot."
Humber Services' vehicles details are: Mercedes 1625s, registrations F873 SDD and G553 XDD; a Mercedes 1726, registration 11610 FDF. All are white with Humber Services on the headboards. Contact: Geoff Evans on (0427) 874444.
Skelton's Mercedes 1617, registration E689 OJV, is white with Skelton Transport Services painted on the cab. Its engine number is 36695220066363 and the chassis nunmber is 61701825316800. Contact: Andrew Skelton on (0724) 281175.
• National glass distribution company Solaglas has also suffered the loss of a truck fitted with a Hiab crane.
Thieves broke into the gated yard at the Eastbourne branch at the end of April and took the Daf FAS 2105 with a black Hiab 140 crane. The rig is worth about £20,000.
The vehicle's keys went missing the day before and later re-appeared. Branch manager Russell Peters believes that the thieves might have copied them in that time.
He says: "The thieves seem to be targeting these vehicles. It's the third crane lorry within a few hundred yards to go missing in nine months... there have also been five or six in a 20-mile radius to go in the past 12 months."
The vehicle registration is D945 FYE and its chassis number is XLAA5 21HT00 279228. The cab is white and the platform is blue. Contact: (0323) 646566.