Fire victim calls for army
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by Herren Hayes III A Sussex-based recovery operator who suffered an arson attack causing .L150,000 worth of damage has called on the army to intervene to stop future attacks.
Mick Gould of Wadhurst is the latest in a long line of Kent and Sussex-based recovery operators working on the AAmanaged police recovery scheme to suffer at the hands of arsonists over the past year. He says the situation has become so bad the armed forces should be called in to deal with certain recovery jobs.
We are just trying to do our jobs," says Gould. "There shouldn't be any risk of reprisals. It has come to the point where somebody will be killed soon."
Following a police raid for suspected stolen vehicles on a Kent site he collected two Ford vans and was told by police to secure them in his workshop. The thieves smashed their way into the yard at 20:30hrs on 15 November and broke into the workshop where the vehicles were being held.
Both vans were loaded up with equipment from the workshop before being stolen, van
ous vehicles were vandalised and an H-registration Volvo F12 was set ablaze after oxygen tanks were strapped to it.
On the same evening two Iveco Ford Cargo 7.5-tonners were set on fire at Reliance Recovery at Tunbridge Wells. There is no connection between the two firms.
In East Sussex impounded vehicles are taken to a secure former army barracks in Crowborough and Gould believes a similar operation should be introduced in Kent.
At a meeting of the county's 20 operators last week a panel of three representatives was elected to try and get more help from the police and the AA. Police investigations are continuing. No an-ests have been made.
• See recovery feature, page 40.