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Murphy: 'Looking down the barrel of a gun is frightening'
Page 16
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Exclusive! We talk to Colin Murphy, who was hijacked at gunpoint, and forced to drive the hijackers away from the scene of a motorway accident.
Atruck driver was hijacked at gunpoint in Warwickshire last week and forced to help three men escape from the scene of a motorway accident.
Colin Murphy, from March in Cambridgeshire, stopped to offer help to the men after the accident on the M42 near Junction 3 last Thursday.
He says: "I asked if everything was all right and they said 'can you take us to Birmingham?'.
"I said no way; then they asked again, but when I refused for a second time one of them pulled a gun and said 'Take us to f***ingBirmingham"."
Despite being understandably frightened. Murphy then found himself telling one of the men who had lit a cigarette that there was no smoking in the cab.
No smoking cab
He explains: "As soon as I said it,! thought 'what the hell are you saying, shut up and keep your eyes on the road'.
"But they had hacked me off because I am quite proud of my cab and they had their feet up on the dashboard, which mucks it up. But they just told me to where to get off when I asked them to stop smoking.
"I even thought of braking quickly and seeing if I could send the three of them through the windscreen, but I was worried it wouldn't break."
The men were in the cab of the N&A Haulage Volvo FH12 vehicle for about 10 minutes when they told Murphy to let them out by Junction 1.
He then drove on for a short while before contacting the police and his wife, Bev,from a rest area.
He says: "I tried to drive off as fast as I could but of course I was in a right pickle. I kept missing my gears and everything."
It was, he says, extremely frightening to look down the barrel of a gun: "It's really small but when it's pointing at you it looks really big. It's a bit like taking a penalty for your country's team when the goal seems really small, except in reverse," he says.
Murphy was carrying a load of waste plastic for Plasgran, plastics recycling firm based in March, Cambridgeshire.