Suspect in 10-year fuel theft spree on CCTV

Police have released CCTV images of a suspected fuel thief who has carried out 100 offences during a 10-year stealing spree, including one in Whitchurch.

West Mercia Police said the man has already helped himself to £6,200 worth of fuel after filling up at several garage forecourts dotted right across the West Mercia region and across Wales since April 2002.

In one incident, on December 27 last year, the suspect filled up a blue BMW with £75 worth of fuel at the Esso Service Station on the Whitchurch bypass and drove off without paying – an offence known as 'bilking'.

The serial thief has used a variety of cars with false number plates and has struck at large national chains and smaller local garages in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and South Wales.

Officers admit they are 'desperately' trying to track him down. Inspector Neil Whitchurch, of West Mercia Police, said: "It's about time he was stopped.

"Over the course of the past decade we have tried to identify this man in a number of different ways but at the moment he continues to prove elusive.

"He has committed offences driving any number of different makes of vehicle, almost all displaying false number plates.

"He always wears a hat when stealing the fuel so it is more difficult to identify him and the three images we have released show three different types of hat."

The man often tops up his tank every 10 days with up to £90 of fuel and even filled a jerry can at the height of panic-buying at the end of March without paying for it.

He usually avoids suspicion by making a dummy walk towards the payment counter before doubling back to his car as if he has forgotten something and then calmly drives off without paying.

The thief, who often also wears glasses and a boiler suit, is believed to be in his 50s. He used a blue Audi estate in his latest raid at a Tesco in Hereford on April 11.

Anyone with information about this man, or the offences he has committed, is asked to contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.