It gives you wings! 20,000 Red Bull cans stolen in lorry raid
The adverts say that Red Bull ‘gives you wings’ – but a consignment of the energy drink needed some help to fly off the back of a lorry parked overnight in a lay-by.
The curtain sides of the lorry were left flapping after a team of night-owl thieves swooped on it and made off with more than 20,000 cans.
Two members of the gang were caught red-handed with the haul after an eagle-eyed trucker made a note of the registration number of their get-away vehicle.
Black Country teenagers Paul Burton and Brendon Wells pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the theft.
Burton, aged 18, of Baptist End Road, Netherton, and Brendon Wells, also 18, of Foresters Fold, Dudley, were both sentenced to nine months detention suspended for two years.
Judge Richard Bond also ordered them to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and to pay £300 costs, as well as taking part in a rehabilitation activity for 60 days.
Prosecutor Mr Graeme Simpson said that in October last year a driver with AFS Haulage Ltd collected a consignment of Red Bull from a distribution centre in in Leicestershire.
At 7.30 that evening he parked his curtain-sided lorry in a lay-by on the A5 close to Rugby for the night.
“At about three the following morning, another lorry driver who had also parked there for the night was awoken by noises outside,” Mr Simpson said.
“He saw a 7.5-ton truck parked alongside the AFS lorry and at least three people stood by it.
“Because of the noise, he thought they were up to no good, so called the police and gave them the registration number of the suspect truck as it drove away.”
Thanks to his swift actions, the police were able to respond when, minutes later, the get-away truck triggered a response from a nearby ANPR camera.
Officers in an unmarked car followed it along the A5 until it pulled into a lay-by and the driver got out and ran away, but Burton and Wells were still in the truck and were arrested.
Mr Simpson said that in the back of the truck the officers found eight pallets containing more than 20,700 cans of Red Bull with a retail value of £24,675. And because the theft meant that Red Bull was unable to fulfil orders placed by two clients, it had to repay them more than £59,000.
Sentencing them after reading pre-sentence reports, Judge Bond told them he was giving them a chance, adding: “I never want to see you again.”
