A MAN involved in an organised fuel scam across the North-East and North Yorkshire has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Gary Lowes was part of a team of people who stole diesel from service stations and haulage yards to sell on the black market.

In eight months, almost £30,000 worth of fuel was taken using cards stolen from ten transport companies on Teesside and in North Yorkshire.

Unemployed Lowes, 43, was said to have been responsible for the theft of £5,110 worth, or about 7,390 litres, of fuel, between November 2002 and July last year.

Christine Egerton, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court that Lowes refused to name the other people involved in the scam, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal when he appeared in court in March.

He returned yesterday to be sentenced, and Mr Recorder Jim Muir told him: "This was an organised scheme on your part to acquire substantial quantities of diesel."

Lowes, of Birchington Avenue, Grangetown, Middlesbrough, was caught by filling station security cameras on numerous occasions using the stolen cards to fill barrels and tanks in the back of his specially-adapted vans.

Mrs Egerton said he was once stopped in Richmond, North Yorkshire, and police found two large fuel tanks, three drums, a generator, a hose, gloves, torches and boltcutters in the back of his van.

Lowes' barrister Stephen Constantine described the scam as "unsophisticated" and insisted his client was not responsible for stealing the fuel payment cards from the companies but bought them from those who had.

"He would maintain that he was not part of a large organisation that set out to steal £30,000 worth of fuel," said Mr Constantine.

"It was not stolen to order and he was not selling it to any large diesel user."

Among the companies that had to bear the brunt of the loss from the fuel cards were Compass Royston coaches, in Stockton, Atkinson Coaches, of Ingleby Arncliffe, North Yorkshire, Teesside Transport, in Middlesbrough, and Wade's Transport, of Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

Lowes used cards at Shell garages in Darlington, Yarm, Guisborough, and at Scotch Corner, Thirsk, and Barton services in North Yorkshire.

Mrs Egerton said: "Others were clearly involved but there is no evidence as to who they are.

"Once Mr Lowes had been arrested the problems that the police had as regards this activity came to an abrupt end."