Hollywood pirate tale trucker is jailed

A banned truck driver who used a forged licence to get a job and then stole £500,000 worth of spirits was jailed for a year last week.

Russell Dyer, 41, originally told police that his truck had been hijacked by a man with a sword resembling Jack Sparrow, the character played by Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

But Dyer, of Alcock Avenue, Mansfield, later admitted that he had carried out the theft to help pay off gambling debts.

Lincoln Crown Court, which heard the case last Friday (July 17), was told that Dyer had originally picked up the whisky and other spirits from depots in Scotland. It was scheduled to go to Norway from Immingham, but never reached the English port.

The stolen spirits were eventually found by Derbyshire police in Eckington, near Chesterfield, among a £7 million haul of stolen goods.

Dyer had managed to get a job as a truck driver with Boston-based Benton Bros because of his forged licence. Benton's chairman Martin Benton said he did not wish to comment in detail on the case, but he said that Dyer had passed "all the usual checks".

The court gave Dyer a 12-month sentence for the theft with two four-month sentences to run concurrently, for false representation and knowingly using false identification papers for a dishonest purpose.