Fuel raid truck found burnt out

The silver Mitsubishi L200 pick-up truck was discovered burnt out on remote land on Monday night, around 10 miles from where Rosemary Dove, 68, died.

Police believe national and local television reports led to the thieves panicking and destroying the truck in an attempt to hide evidence.

Mrs Dove collapsed after running inside the family home when she and husband Frank, 67, returned home from an agricultural show in Scotland to find thieves stealing fuel.

The raid at East House Farm in Bishop Middleham, County Durham, comes at a time of record fuel prices, with diesel as much as 1.31p a litre on the forecourts.

Farmers often store large quantities of diesel for use in their tractors and other machinery. It is cheaper because the taxes on it are much lower, but is dyed red to make it harder to substitute for forecourt fuel.

When Mr Dove went to confront the intruder, his wife went inside the house to telephone the police and alert relatives on a nearby farm.

In the meantime, her husband, who had been joined by his son, Michael, 43, and other relatives, chased the intruders' truck across the fields in their own vehicles.

At one stage the farmer and his family cornered the pick-up truck and Michael Dove got out of his car to approach it. But the truck clipped him and knocked him into a ditch as it tried to escape. He suffered a double fracture to the hip and a minor head injury and is recovering in hospital.

The Mitsubishi was found burning at Howlish Plantation, a few hundred yards from the village of Coundon, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham.