Brit sues for bur nm
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• A Grimsby haulage operator, whose lorry was hijacked by French farmers in June and its 215,000 load of British beef burned, (CM 28 June-4 July) has been told it can claim compensation from the French authorities.
Ken Bevis, managing director of international reefer specialist Bondalpha has told CM that the Foreign Office wrote to Humberside Euro MP Peter Crampton — who had taken up the fight on behalf of the firm — to say it would help in a compensation claim.
"We have been told we are eligible to claim, but we are not jumping up and down yet," says Bevis. "We are formulating our claim and will be submitting it through the channels that have now been opened to us. But we can't say if we will get it settled, or when."
Driver David Keefe, who works for Lincoln-based Garthtown Haulage, and is subcontracted to carry out a regular run for Bondalpha to the south of France, was stopped in June by a gang of 30 farmers as he travelled through the Loire Valley. He was forced to drive to a deserted spot where the beef was unloaded and des troyed. Keefe and his truck were not harmed.
Bevis hopes the claim can be settled quickly. We are not prepared for a long wait," he says. "We want to see it settled in a month. They must pay."
Somerset-based Central Road Transport had to wait two years for a similar compensation claim to be sorted out. 'The firm lost a lorry load of lamb worth 218,000 when it was attacked and burned by French farmers. "We wanted to add on a claim for two years' interest on the money we had lost," says director Maurice Chown, "but we were told that if we added anything extra to the claim we would get no money at all."
CRT has just filed another compensation claim for 21,600, for a lorry load of lamb that was recently held up at Cherbourg docks on its way to Spain and subsequently refused entry to France.