Thieves trying to steal £15k of vodka abandon lorry on M40 near Warwick and run across motorway traffic

Thieves who tried to steal £15,000 worth of vodka abandoned their lorry on the outside lane of the M40 near Warwick and then ran across the motorway, dodging traffic, to escape.

Just before that, they also rammed a police car to make sure they got away.

The incident happened in the early hours of this morning (Thursday) when police were called to Warwick Services northbound after a report of offenders stealing Items from the trailer of a parked lorry.

Officers from Warwickshire Police's OPU Unit said: "When we arrived on scene the offenders made off in a cloned Renault HGV and rammed our police vehicle to make good their escape. We found the cloned lorry abandoned unattended in the live outside lane of the M40.

"The offenders managed to escape into the darkness after running across the live southbound carriageway before we could get to them. On a positive note we recovered the cloned HGV and 150 boxes of vodka worth £15,000. We returned the vodka and loaded this back onto the attacked vehicle.

"We are determined to reduce this type of theft and will continue to proactively patrol our service areas nightly to target and catch these criminals."