DETECTIVES were today trying to unravel the mystery of a terrified trucker who ended up in Bolton after his articulated lorry was hijacked in Dover.

Paul Bennett reported his ordeal to local police after escaping from his captors in Yorkshire and flagging down a motorist who dropped him off at a Bolton phone box.

Mr Bennett, from Croydon, told detectives he had driven the truck, containing a consignment of Italian fabrics, off a cross-channel ferry at Dover early on Saturday morning.

He was bound for the Heathrow area but, because he had time to spare, climbed into the bunk at the back of his cab to sleep at the ferry terminal car park.

Suddenly, the unlocked doors were flung open and two men slammed his bunk shut with Mr Bennett still inside.

Mr Bennett said the hijackers had threatened to shoot him if he resisted, although he did not see a gun.

During the next few hours, he lost all sense of time and place, but eventually became aware that the truck was stationary. He kicked open the bunk and fled from the empty cab.

Mr Bennett found himself in a service station at Hartshead Moor in Yorkshire.

He flagged down the first passing car and the driver took him to a call box on Watergate Lane, off the M61, near Farnworth.

Det Chief Insp Graham Stott: "There is now no sign of the trailer, or the driver who gave Mr Bennett a lift to Bolton."

The hijacked truck was an all-white 45-foot, three-axle rig with no commercial markings except on the back where the words "Tip Rental Trailer" were painted. The registration number is M386 JTN.

Bolton police officers would like to talk to the driver who gave Mr Bennett the lift from Hartshead Moor to Bolton. The number is Bolton 522466.

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