Theft could ruin haulier
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• A Basingstoke owner-driver could lose his house and business after thieves stole his second specialist timber hauling truck in less than a year.
Pete Head owes £100,000 for the month-old truck and specialised pump equipment. He estimates the thefts have cost him 1:50,000 in lost business as well as higher premiums. But he has no way of earning the cash he needs because he cannot hire equipment capable of the work.
"I'm likely to lose everything, including the house," he says, Thieves dug out an embankment and cut a wire into the secure goods yard where Head kept his Mercedes along with 20 other drivers' trucks on 16 April. The truck was due to have a Tracker unit fitted within days.
After his MAN was stolen last May Head's insurance premiums rose by over 1:1,000 and he expects they will become unaffordable now. "The industry ought to do something," he says. "The police do nothing,"