Digger thief snared by cloned reg plates

A DIGGER thief was caught after he was stopped when police spotted his cloned number plates.

- By ESTHER HALLIGAN

Tyson Petch, 28, was towing a flatbed trailer in a stolen Toyota pick-up truck on May 16.

A further five fake number plates were found inside the black truck - which Petch later said he had been given as payment for stealing a digger.

Teesside Crown Court has heard that the black pick-up had been stolen from a home in Gravesend, Kent, on April 5.