Haulier offers £5,000 for arrest of fire bomb gang
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• A despairing haulier is offering a £5,000 reward to try to catch arsonists who he believes have targeted his depot twice in three months.
In the latest incident at Dudley Hankins' Cambridgeshire depot earlier this month, about £20,000 damage was inflicted on his trucks. Fortunately only two trucks were damaged in the blaze, as a petrol bomb failed to ignite in a third vehicle.
Hankins says that if his son did not want to remain in haulage he would be considering selling his 27-year-old business, D and R Hankins. He is devastated after an earlier fire at his Manea-based depot at the
end of September caused £200,000 worth of damage— destroying five trucks and damaging another two. And he fears that his insurance company will now demand that he invests in improving security at his yard.
Hankins had never suffered from any damage to his bulk tipper business until the two fires. He has 15 trucks still on the road.
He believes that by offering such a large reward people will be enticed to help him from suffering a third attack: "I believe the £5,000 will be the difference between somebody speaking or not. The attacks have cost me so much this far, I've got nothing to lose."