Wrong fuel blunders cost Staffordshire Police £20,000
Bungling police officers in Staffordshire have wasted more than £20,000 of taxpayer cash by filling up patrol cars with the wrong fuel, it can be revealed.
Dozens of red-faced bobbies pumped unleaded into their high-performance motors when they should have been using diesel.
The costly gaffes meant cars had to be recovered by a roadside team and taken to a garage for expensive repair work for cars that included BMWs as well as Ford Focus and Vauxhall cars.
Staffordshire Police saw 35 of the vehicles in its 550-strong fleet filled with the wrong fuel, at a cost of £20,163 for repairs and recovery.
Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis criticised the error and called for a system to prevent absent-minded police officers reaching for the wrong pump. He said: "I'm disappointed.
"We now have a small team in place, and we are reviewing all aspects of the force. There is a lot that needs fixing. There are a lot of savings we can make to put back into frontline policing.
"We should be able to put in a system to ensure the right sort of fuel is put in the tank.
"We need to make sure this doesn't happen again."
Staffordshire garage owner James Begley said: "It is careless – a real lack of concentration at the pump. Sadly, it is not uncommon."
The blunders, which took place over the last two years, were exposed by figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.
A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: "The force is looking at products on the market which can be fitted to vehicles to help prevent such incidents occurring.
"Unleaded fuel pumps have smaller nozzles than diesel pumps, which makes it easier to wrong-fuel diesel vehicles.
"Officers work in a high-pressure environment and, occasionally, mistakes do occur when fuelling vehicles.
"However, we do review cases where errors occur so that appropriate advice can be given to those involved.
"The force has a fleet of almost 550 vehicles which, between them, travel hundreds of thousands of miles a year."
Cheshire Police racked up a £5,936 bill for repairs after 56 of its cars were filled with the wrong fuel during the same period.
Staffordshire Police has seen its government funding fall by £3.8 million in this financial year.
The force is planning to save about £34m by 2015, partly due to government-imposed budget cuts of £38.7m over the next four years.
Matthew Ellis was elected the county's first Police and Crime Commissioner in November last year.
