A gang of thieves was chased across the county line by traffic cops from two police forces – after they unloaded booty from the back of a lorry in Oxfordshire.

Holed up in their getaway lorry after the theft near Weston-on-the-Green on July 1, 2020, the driver ignored the police officers’ attempts to get him to stop the vehicle.

Hellbent on outrunning the officers, the gang’s HGV was tracked by traffic units from Thames Valley Police and Northamptonshire Police as well as the police helicopter as he led officers on a 31 mile chase.

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The driver ploughed through a ‘stinger’ device aimed at deflating the tyres and stopping the vehicle from getting onto the M1.

Sentencing, Recorder John Bate-Williams told four of the gang members in front of him at Oxford Crown Court this week: “Even this failed to persuade you the game was up.”

The lorry slowed to between 40 and 50mph then veered out of control and hit the central reservation.

The occupants of the lorry fled on foot, but were rounded up by the officers and a police dog.

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Only one of the five men arrested answered questions when he was interviewed by officers.

John Knowles claimed to have been making his way back to Yorkshire on foot, having been thrown out of a friend’s car, when he met the men in the lorry at a motorway service station and they offered him a lift.

He fell asleep on a bunk in the vehicle and only awoke as they were tailed by the police.

Recorder Bate-Williams told the unlucky hitchhiker that the probation officer tasked with preparing a pre-sentence report on him had found Knowles’ account ‘wholly implausible’. “As do I,” he added.

Oxford Mail: John Knowles and Danny Hunter-Smith outside Oxford Crown Court

The goods stolen from the lorry had an estimated value of £7,000. Mark Doyle, John Knowles, Danny Hunter-Smith and Joseph Hunter-Smith, all from West Yorkshire, admitted their parts in the theft.

Two years later, in August 2022, Doyle and Joseph Hunter-Smith were involved in stealing £1,500-worth of goods from the trailer of another lorry parked up on the A34 in Whitchurch, Hants, while the driver was asleep.

Another trucker saw the theft being committed and called the police. This time the thieves made it to the Botley interchange before they were brought to a halt by officers.

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Doyle, 46, of Windermere Drive, Knottingley, was given 20 months’ imprisonment. He was described by his barrister as ‘not an organiser but a pair of hands’.

Knowles, 37, of Hazel Road, Knottingley, received 10 months’ imprisonment but Recorder Bate-Williams said it was ‘by a very narrow margin’ he had decided to suspend the jail term for 18 months. He must do the thinking skills programme and complete other probation sessions.

Danny Hunter-Smith, 26, of Sycamore Avenue, Knottingley, was handed 14 months’ imprisonment suspended for a year and a half. He too must complete the thinking skills programme and up to 40 rehabilitation activity requirement days.

All three men were parents, with the judge variously describing them as having set a ‘pathetic’, ‘poor’ and ‘very bad’ example to their children.

A fourth co-defendant, Joseph Hunter-Smith, 37, of Grasmere Road, Knottingley, will be sentenced later in the year.