Coventry delivery driver jailed for stealing £65k of booze

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Coventry delivery driver jailed for stealing £65k of booze

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A DRIVER with a Coventry courier firm has been jailed for stealing crates of booze worth £65,000.

Former soldier Michael King was caught dropping off vodka and whisky to men he had met in a pub in return for cash.

He was nabbed after businesses which should have received the spirits contacted his bosses at DHL Express to complain about their missing drinks.

At the crown court in Leamington, King pleaded guilty to stealing four pallets of vodka and two of whisky from the company in June and July last year.

King, 41, of New Street, New Bilton, Rugby, was jailed for nine months after the judge rejected a request to adjourn for a pre-sentence report.

Prosecutor Nigel Wilkins said that at the time King was working as an agency driver for DHL based on the Prologis business park in Coventry.

But at the start of June he came to an arrangement with three people, who he would not name, to divert from his planned route when he was carrying large amount of spirits.

King drove to Storage World, in Rugby, where the other men unloaded two pallets of drink on each of three occasions.

The first two drop-offs were each of two pallets of Smirnoff vodka worth £11,000 each, while the third was two pallets of single malt whisky worth a total of £21,000.

But the thefts were quite easily detected because customers had already started to complain to DHL about not receiving their deliveries of vodka.

When the whisky did not arrive, it was found that all the deliveries should have been made by King – and when he was spoken to by DHL’s security manager, an ex-policeman, he made a full confession.

He said he was recruited by other men at a pub and, because of his financial circumstances, was tempted to take part when they offered him £2,500 for each pallet taken, although he never actually received his money from them.

Each pallet contained 120 cases of whisky or vodka, and although the contents of the pallets of vodka had gone when the police raided the container at Storage World, all but 24 cases of whisky were recovered, added Mr Wilkins.

Sean Logan, defending, said: “This is a gentleman who has pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and fully co-operated with his employer.

"He says he had no idea the value of the drink was so high.”

Mr Logan said King had previously been in the Army for ten years, serving in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and with a peace-keeping force in Rwanda.

He had run up a £13,000 debt and was ‘‘desperate’’.