Farmer counts the cost after stolen tractor rammed into house
An English farmer says a stolen tractor that was driven into a rival's house has left him thousands of pounds out of pocket, with the thief now jailed for over seven years.
Ian Tate, a farmer near Yarm in North East England, says the theft of his tractor has taken both an emotional and financial toll. He first learned of the incident when police knocked on his door in the early hours to tell him his tractor had ended up embedded in a house nine miles away in Middlesbrough.
Nathan Blagg, 28, has been sentenced to more than seven years and two months in prison over the theft. Teesside Crown Court heard that Blagg deliberately targeted the home of a rival's family after that person had urinated on his father's grave.
The theft and chase
According to evidence presented in court, Blagg and several associates arrived at Tate's farm late at night. After failing to steal a large sprayer, they took a Massey Ferguson tractor with a baler attached from a barn. CCTV footage showed the tractor being driven at high speed toward Middlesbrough, often on the wrong side of the road, before it was rammed through the front wall of a house belonging to the rival's family.
Financial toll
Repairing the tractor cost Tate £38,000, and he paid £1,000 a week for ten weeks to hire a replacement machine while his own was being fixed. The baler attached to the tractor had to be written off entirely. He also paid more than £5,700 in recovery and storage fees while police examined the vehicle.
While insurance will cover the costs, Tate expects his next premium to rise sharply. He noted that the 10-tonne, 250-horsepower tractor and four-tonne baler could have caused serious harm had the driver lost control on Middlesbrough's streets, and said he had also feared what might have happened had he encountered the thieves himself.
