A driver for turner’s has been found guilty of nicking
red diesel from his trailer.
An agency lorry driver who stole thousands of pounds in red diesel to heat his family home while working for haulage firm Turners (Soham) has been sentenced to a 26-week suspended prison term.
Carlisle Magistrates’ Court heard that Jason Randall, a 47-year-old lorry driver from New Zealand, had regularly siphoned off red diesel in a lay-by near Penrith. Randall admitted to the theft and stated he had used the red diesel to heat his family’s home.
Turners estimated that Randall stole diesel on 138 occasions between October 2018 and May 2022, costing the company between £3,384 and £7,464.
Randall’s solicitor Jeff Smith told the court that the agency driver, who has three children, “didn’t have a particularly high income” and was short of money.
Smith added that Randall was “very sorry for what he did,” that he had lost his job as a result of his actions, and that he was ineligible for benefits in the UK.
Randall was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months. He must also carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and contribute £500 to the compensation fund.
Turners (Soham) has yet to respond to a request for comment
tachograph:
He’s probably going to find it hard to get work now, hardly worth it in my opinion
He’s on agency so assuming he doesn’t go to prison for anything else, should be a case of saying to agency “I available for work next week” and they’ll know not to send him to Turners. Pretty much no agency does background checks unless its very specific work. Pretty much equally easy if fulltime but there is a slightly higher chance of someone doing a Google search on application as its not purely bums on seats.
peirre:
Burners of Blowham (some of us will remember the incident from years ago) don’t have a great reputation when it comes to treatment of their drivers
Maybe that’s why he did it.
Ok it doesn’t justify it, but it goes a long way to explain it,. In a …
‘‘I’ll.get those f…rs back for all this crap’’ kind of way.
And then he got caught.
I just wish they had done some digging and found out how his home was actually heated! I guarantee a pound to a pinch of ■■■■ it was either gas or electric.
fingermissing:
Turners estimated that Randall stole diesel on 138 occasions between October 2018 and May 2022, costing the company between £3,384 and £7,464.
The maths here (£3,384/138 and £7,464/138) suggests that he was stealing between £24.52 and £54.06 worth of diesel each time. I’m guessing he was using 25 litre drums, hiding them in the lay-by somewhere and then picking them up in his car later? It seems a bit too much to waltz out of the company gate with.
fingermissing:
Turners estimated that Randall stole diesel on 138 occasions between October 2018 and May 2022, costing the company between £3,384 and £7,464.
The maths here (£3,384/138 and £7,464/138) suggests that he was stealing between £24.52 and £54.06 worth of diesel each time. I’m guessing he was using 25 litre drums, hiding them in the lay-by somewhere and then picking them up in his car later? It seems a bit too much to waltz out of the company gate with.
I was looking at those figures and came to a similar answer. I wasn’t sure about how much cherry that would be as it’s cheaper than DERV, but 25l drums sounds about right.
The report does say he was doing it in a layby near Penrith. I’d imagine that’d be close enough to home for picking up later.
It’s a very wide range though, more than double from low to high estimates.
You’d think they’d notice fairly quickly, that one of there fridge units was suddenly using a hell of a lot of diesel, on the odd day or two.
It’s one thing nicking 5l of derv everytime you fill up. Different drivers can get better or worse mpg. That guys a bit heavy footed compared to most of our lads.
But fridge units tend to use virtually the same amount of fuel on a daily basis. They’re either running, or off, and not open to the various drivers abilities to influence. Maybe they were just giving him plenty of rope to hang himself with?
fellow i knew was doing that and more. he was so crafty hed nick other stuff as well as the fuel, to casually give out to friends,this then got them involved but theyd then not dare squeal on him as theyd handled the goods so to speak. Simple items such as boxes of tissues,set of screwdrivers or a gallon of diesel and suddenly your part of it . Watch out if a known thief gives you anything, at the very least get rid of it .
I S’pose we all know one who’s pinching stuff and thinks it’s ok, personally I wouldn’t even consider doing it as I’d be spiting myself and ultimately it’s the hand that feeds me. A couple of drivers I know have been sacked over the years for fuel thefts. The first was having a garage/extension built at home, and had one of the lads from the pub come round with a JCB to dig out the footings, so he stole some Cherry out of the belly tank, but he did it too close to the depot and a manager was driving past and spotted him doing it. The 2nd worked for a local company who allowed their drivers to draw fuel from the company pumps at cost price and pay the bill out of their wages, he got to greedy and was filling up the family cars at night and denied drawing the additional fuel.
robroy:
peirre:
Burners of Blowham (some of us will remember the incident from years ago) don’t have a great reputation when it comes to treatment of their drivers
Maybe that’s why he did it.
Ok it doesn’t justify it, but it goes a long way to explain it,. In a …
‘‘I’ll.get those f…rs back for all this crap’’ kind of way.
And then he got caught.
I’m not trying to justify the theft of the fuel, the driver was too stupid to realise that companies monitor their fuel usage and deserved the punishment.
However the company has never had a good reputation for looking after their employees hence my comment
fingermissing:
Turners estimated that Randall stole diesel on 138 occasions between October 2018 and May 2022, costing the company between £3,384 and £7,464.
The maths here (£3,384/138 and £7,464/138) suggests that he was stealing between £24.52 and £54.06 worth of diesel each time. I’m guessing he was using 25 litre drums, hiding them in the lay-by somewhere and then picking them up in his car later? It seems a bit too much to waltz out of the company gate with.
I was looking at those figures and came to a similar answer. I wasn’t sure about how much cherry that would be as it’s cheaper than DERV, but 25l drums sounds about right.
The report does say he was doing it in a layby near Penrith. I’d imagine that’d be close enough to home for picking up later.
It’s a very wide range though, more than double from low to high estimates.
You’d think they’d notice fairly quickly, that one of there fridge units was suddenly using a hell of a lot of diesel, on the odd day or two.
It’s one thing nicking 5l of derv everytime you fill up. Different drivers can get better or worse mpg. That guys a bit heavy footed compared to most of our lads.
But fridge units tend to use virtually the same amount of fuel on a daily basis. They’re either running, or off, and not open to the various drivers abilities to influence. Maybe they were just giving him plenty of rope to hang himself with?
There are regular reports in the media of employees stealing money from their employers that have gone on for years and amount to many thousands of pounds.
I remember from decades ago a report in “Headlight”, the now defunct HGV driver magazine:
A driver had a regular run, and always had “a plus*” on it.
Another driver was put on the run, and did the same.
And later a third, although apparently reluctantly: “You can`t dob your mates in!”
Obviously, sooner or later someone honest got the run, and all the previous drivers were in the cart.
*When putting fuel in on the card at manned stations a “plus” was added on the card account, the attendant would later sell that for cash, (no receipt) and the attendant and driver split the money.
The problem with most people who indulge in things like this is that they get caught because they’re greedy and too stupid to realise that nicking 25+L at a time is going to stand out when compared to same-run-different-driver.
A guy I used to work with successfully stole diesel (from the truck we shared!) for over three years by keeping it down to 10 litres a day, every day. Over a 300 or 400 mile journey such amounts can be simply down to driving-style differences as has already been pointed out. He didn’t get caught, he told me in person when I bumped into him one day outside work, after he’d moved on to a different company.
