A BURGER van man set up an early morning meeting with a man he met at a football match to buy equipment worth £12,000, a court heard.

Blackburn magistrates were told how Herbert Silcock met the other man at 5am in a lay-by off the A1 in Lincolnshire.

He returned to Lancashire with two mini cement mixers, a pressure washer and four generators which all belonged to a Cambridgeshire-based hire company.

The court was told that between leaving the owner’s property and being discovered in Altham, serial numbers had been removed from some of the items.

Silcock, 38, of Canal Way, Altham, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods.

He was remanded on bail for the preparation of a pre-sentence report with a warning that all options, including prison, would be open to the sentencing bench.

David Hartley, prosecuting, said police investigating a burglary in Cambridgeshire recovered a generator, which was carrying a tracker, from premises in Altham.

They then went to Silcock’s house in Burnley Road were the other items were discovered.

Mr Hartley said the burglary in Cambridgeshire took place over the weekend on May 5 to May 8 and the goods were recovered in Lancashire on May 10.