4 tonnes missing!
At 0730hrs on 6th September the Lancashire Police Search Team at Heysham Dock contacted TER requesting assistance with the identification of a 26 tonne JCB excavator which was destined for Cork in the Republic of Ireland. The driver - from a well known haulage company - had collected the excavator from an industrial park in Buxton in Derbyshire. The Lancashire officers decided to investigate further.
On being informed of the serial number from the plate fixed to the JCB's chassis the TER operator was immediately able to identify that the plate referred to a 22 tonne excavator and not to the 26 tonne excavator at Heysham – 4 tonnes had gone missing somewhere! It subsequently transpired that the plate on the Heysham JCB had been stolen from another JCB excavator which was still in a dealer’s yard in Telford in Shropshire. On directing the officers to other identification data on the excavator an immediate match was made with an excavator which had been stolen from Sleaford in Lincolnshire on 2nd August shortly before its export to the Netherlands. The theft had been reported to TER but was not logged on the Police National Computer.
The excavator was recovered back to Rocester by JCB themselves. Subsequent investigation revealed that the collection address in Buxton was not a bona fide address for the company which had requested the excavator’s haulage to Cork, and that they had also provided a false company name. The insurer was Norwich Union. A JCB 802 mini-excavator remains outstanding as stolen from the original theft.
In addition to the recovery of a stolen £75,000 excavator, the police were able to gather some useful intelligence from this recovery.