Video report: Car recovered from canal
A 150-tonne crane was brought in to recover an Audi A4 from the Kennet and Avon Canal in Newbury this week
A BRAND new Audi A4 dumped in the Kennet and Avon Canal in Newbury was unceremoniously hauled out on Tuesday (September 20) although no-one is any the wiser as to how it came to be there.
Thames Valley Police received reports last Wednesday that a silver Audi A4 had been found in the Kennet and Avon Canal near the swing bridge to the east of Hambridge Lane.
The vehicle, which costs more than £20,000 brand new, is understood to have been stolen from the Ridgeway Audi dealership in Newbury sometime between Saturday, September 10 and Monday, September 12.
However, the unorthodox ‘parking' of the vehicle caused quite a stir among passers-by.
Thatcham man Stuart Lang, who came across the vehicle as he walked by the canal last Thursday (15), said he did not know what it was when he first saw it.
He said: “It was a bit of a surprise as you don't expect to find a car in the canal.
“I thought maybe a sat nav had gone very wrong.”
Mr Lang said that there was no obvious way in to the water at the point where the vehicle was found, leaving passers-by to speculate on how it ended up there.
Police searched the car last week and established that no one was inside before placing a ‘police aware' sticker on the vehicle prior to its recovery.
The vehicle was then recovered on Tuesday when a 150-tonne crane was brought in from Hayes in west London to lift the vehicle out of the water, with assistance from Ridgeway Audi.
Mark Shattock, from crane hire company Ainscough, said: “We came down last Friday to look at the job and determined that we would need a 150-tonne crane with normal road ballast to recover it.”
The vehicle was lifted from the canal to the adjacent bank using a H-frame and was then re-slung with extra wide slings to lift the car above the top of the trees and on to the road for recovery.
Mr Shattock said, however, that this was not an unusual job for the company.
He said: “We have recovered various bits and pieces from rivers and canals before, from tractors to lorries and ordinary cars.”
The cost of the operation is not yet known and Ridgeway Audi declined to comment on the incident, but Thames Valley Police spokeswoman Lucy Billen said the dealership insurance needed to organise the removal of the car from the canal.
Meanwhile, police are still investigating the theft and anyone with any information is urged to contact PC Oliver Perry-Smith on 0845 8 505 505, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
