A BURGER van man who set up an early morning meeting with a man he met at a football match to buy stolen equipment worth £12,000 has walked free from court.

Blackburn magistrates heard 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. And 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.

Ordering him to do 150 hours unpaid work and pay £85 costs, the chairman of the magistrates said they had considered sending him to prison.

He said: “I can’t believe that a businessman could be led on and believe a meeting in a lay-by could be innocent.

“The high value of the machinery is a very serious aggravating factor.”

The court heard 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.