'Violent gypsies' blamed for truckstop fuel theft

A driver who had more than 120 litres of fuel siphoned from his truck as he slept in his cab has condemned security at the Moto service area on the M4 near Reading where he was parked up. John Hunt, who drives for Coventry-based John English, says: "I saw when I parked up that there were a load of gypsies nearby so I went into the service area to check that there was security before I went to bed. I then woke at 1.30am to find [the gypsies] using a pump to siphon off the fuel."

Hunt started to get out of his cab, but when he saw a large group of men stealing the fuel he locked himself in and phoned the police. By the time they arrived, the men had disappeared. Hunt adds: "They charge us to park there so I would think that adequate security is one of the things we are paying for. But I spoke to the manager and he just said 'they are not civilised people. We can't do anything with them'."

Jackie Sharman, Moto's administrative manager at the Reading site, admits that security is unlikely to improve: "We have a guy who walks around at night but he can't be everywhere at once. And we know we have a problem with gypsies, but there is not much we can do with them." Sharman adds that one reason the situation is difficult to resolve is that the "[gypsies] are potentially violent". A police spokesman says the travellers have since been moved on from the M4 service area, but he has no idea where they went.