A LORRY driver earning £650 a week admitted in court that he was a member of a gang who stole a £171,000 computer load.

Terence Devine had worked on the Evesham.Com pick-up route for Amtrack and was a substitute driver for Alan Jones, the victim of a hijack, Worcester Crown Court heard.

But he denied being the gang's insider and claimed Mr Jones "wanted to lose a load" and was in on the plot.

Mr Jones, aged 57, told the jury he was held up at gunpoint on the M5 sliproad at Whittington near Worcester on June 21 last year shortly after leaving the Evesham firm. He was kidnapped in the boot of a car.

Devine said his job was to make an inventory of the stolen computers as they were stored in lock-up garages and check their prices on the internet.

He was also asked to check the road between Evesham and the M5 for police by alleged ringleader Terry Cutler.

Prosecutor Nigel Godsmark QC put it to Devine that despite his high income, he still wanted "to get rich quick".

He alleged that Devine admired Cutler's lifestyle which included gold jewellery and a flash BMW car and saw him as a wheeler-dealer.

Devine retorted that the QC lived in a fantasy world but he admitted lying to police that on the day of the hold-up he was at home with four friends.

Mr Godsmark said Devine deceived the friends into giving him a false alibi and was "prepared to sacrifice them to save his own skin".

He accused Devine of visiting Mr Jones at his Staffordshire home to pump him for information about those who held him up so that the gang was prepared.

Devine said he had been ordered to see Mr Jones to find out why he had dropped Cutler in it by identifying him on a police parade.

The trial continues on Monday.