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Chronicle Live
National
Katie Anderson

Newcastle haulage depot has fuel 'worth £25,000' stolen

15,000 litres of fuel, worth roughly £25,000, has been snatched from a storage facility on Sandy Lane Industrial Estate in Newcastle.

The diesel was allegedly taken from Murray Hogg depot on Tuesday night, in an incident captured on CCTV.

One of the company directors, David Hogg, spoke of his stress at a time when fuel prices are already "crippling" businesses.

Go here for the latest crime news and breaking North East police updates

Oil prices have been on the rise and now Russia's invasion of Ukraine has continued to impact global oil prices - for the first time on record, the cost to fill up a tank of diesel has surpassed £90.

The director said he's had a phone call with Northumbria Police to report the "frustrating" incident, but they are "yet to come out" to the depot.

So in the meantime, he's been getting in touch with other companies in the region who have suffered similar incidents.

"There's two companies in North Yorkshire" he explained. "An animal feed company that has had 20,000 litres taken and a construction company that had 6,000 litres taken.

"And then there's a concrete company in Newburn which suffered a fuel robbery last week.

"All companies have said that it was a white articulated vehicle and the fuel was taken with hoses.

"It means we have a serious operation on our hands. We need the police from the different regions to work together."

CCTV from the night shows what appears to be a SUV Mitsubishi, a two axle DAF truck and a three-axle white box van pulling into the Sandy Lane site, and David said he spotted five people on camera who he thinks are involved in the operation.

This included: "the driver of the car, two people who took the hose down to the farmer's field, one driver and one in the back filling the drums."

It was one of the security patrol staff who spotted that something was off during his early morning rounds.

And when David was informed, he said he "expected it to be a guy with a few jerry cans, not a whole team filling a truck."

A Northumbria Police spokesperson said: “Yesterday we received a report of a theft of fuel from a haulage firm based on Sandy Lane, Newcastle.

“Enquiries are on-going into the theft and anyone with any information, CCTV or dashcam footage is asked to contact police online via the ‘Tell us Something’ function of our website or call 101 and quote log NP-20220309-0054.”

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