Driver helped truck thieves
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I A lorry driver has been sent to prison for 15 months after helping thieves steal his vehicle and its £65,000 load of electrical goods.
Alan Tranter of Sheraton Close, Hereford, Staffs, left a duplicate key in the ignition of his truck to enable thieves to take the vehicle, Patrick Darby. prosecuting, told Warwick Crown Court.
Tranter admitted a charge of theft and was ordered to pay his employers £160 compensation, as well as being sent to prison.
Darby said 24-year-old Tranter worked for Transfast at Cannock Industrial Estate, Bridgetown. Staffs and made regular runs delivering electrical goods to a depot in Peterborough for the Freemans catalogue company.
In January this year Tranter parked at a truck
stop off the M42 near Tamworth on his way to Peterborough.
He subsequently reported to his employers and the police that his lorry had been stolen while he was having a break.
The tractive unit was later found abandoned in Bilston, near Wolverhampton, and the empty vehicle was dumped in Oldbury near Dudley.
"In fact, Tranter later admitted the theft had taken place by arrangement with him," said Darby. "He told police that a man on the industrial estate had offered him £1,000 if he co-operated in the theft."
Trevor Banks, defending, said Tranter had co-operated with the thieves because he was a family man and had felt threatened by the situation.