Skip to main content

Grave crime

A British man was sent to prison for four years after being stopped by police while he was in the process of stealing a JCB telehandler. In his attempts to elude following police, the man veered wildly along narrow roads with no thought for other road users. He then drove the telehandler through a graveyard, smashing headstones and damaging graves in his escape bid. This proved fruitless however as a police helicopter had joined the pursuit and was able to direct police cars towards the speeding JCB. The ma
February 28, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A British man was sent to prison for four years after being stopped by police while he was in the process of stealing a 255 JCB telehandler. In his attempts to elude following police, the man veered wildly along narrow roads with no thought for other road users. He then drove the telehandler through a graveyard, smashing headstones and damaging graves in his escape bid. This proved fruitless however as a police helicopter had joined the pursuit and was able to direct police cars towards the speeding JCB. The man was forced to stop by a flat tyre, which was caused by damage accrued during his destructive rampage through the graveyard. He had attempted to steal the telehandler to order for criminals. In court this, and a series of 16 other vehicle theft offences, were taken into account in his sentencing.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Zipping up road lanes – with Barrier Systems
    September 10, 2018
    QMB has a Lindsay Road Zipper on duty near Montreal. World Highways deputy editor David Arminas climbed aboard As vice president of Canadian barrier specialist QMB, based in Laval, Quebec, Marc-Andre Seguin is sanguine about the future for moveable barriers. On the one hand, it looks good. The oft-stated advantage of moveable barriers is that the systems are cheaper to install than adding a lane or two to a highway or bridge. Directional changes to lanes can boost volume on a road without disrupting tra
  • Riding the sustainable cycle
    October 5, 2020
    It’s taken a while in North America, but “vehicular cycling” has been replaced by “sustainable cycling”, says transportation engineer Tyler Golly.
  • Police action reveals drink driving issue in Europe
    July 27, 2015
    Pan-European moves to tackle drink driving reveal that many still take to the wheel while over the limit for alcohol. The results from week-long operation to address drink driving run in June show that there were 16,497 alcohol offences from 1,104,879 breath tests in 26 countries. One in 66 drivers tested was over the limit in this year’s operation, compared with one in 63 last year and one in 59 in 2013. In addition, 2,752 drug offences were recorded, while over 2,516 other crimes were also detected during
  • Smashing argument
    December 2, 2013
    In China a father revealed his anger with his son in a particularly destructive fashion. The man rammed his Mercedes saloon into his son’s BMW sportscar at a busy junction in the city of Ma'anshan, which is in Anhui Province. The incident was captured on CCTV and as the son attempted to drive away, the father rammed the Mercedes again into the BMW. The son then jumped out of his car and ran away, with the father also abandoning the now-wrecked Mercedes as he pursued his son on foot. The two damaged cars wer