RAC ‘wheel thief’ put lives at risk, says car owner

 
Tom Harper3 April 2012
WEST END FINAL

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An RAC patrolman was arrested after being filmed stealing wheels from a parked car and replacing them with bald tyres.

CCTV footage from a shop in Rainham caught him taking the wheels at about 2.30am from a Peugeot 206 owned by lorry driver Colin Dann. The thief was also filmed attaching the inferior tyres with two bolts instead of four.

Mr Dann, 40, said: “I got in the car to drive to work and it didn’t feel right. I thought I’d better pump up the tyres and then realised they were not my tyres. They’re almost bald. I took the hub caps off and noticed there were only two bolts.”

He later retrieved the CCTV footage from the shop.

Mr Dann told The Sun: “The tyres he put on are illegal and I drove down the A13 at 50mph on them. If the wheels had come off it would have caused an accident or even a death.”

A Met police spokesman said a 32-year-old man was arrested and cautioned for theft on Saturday, March 31.

An RAC spokesman said: “We notified police immediately and helped with their enquiries.” RAC vans have tracking devices.

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