Stolen from the MOD – guns and a canoe

THE Ministry of Defence has admitted guns and ammunition were among £500,000 worth of equipment lost or stolen last year.

In one theft from an MOD base in Gibraltar, fuel worth £50,000 vanished while in other raids night-vision goggles, body armour and even a parachute have been taken.

As well as the thefts, in the past year 14 guns and more than 80,000 rounds of ammunition were listed as “lost and stolen”. The MOD also lost 52 computers and laptops and 62 memory sticks, although it said all the information on them would have been encrypted.

A drum, worth £1,175 and used in ceremonies, was taken from Bulford Camp, on Salisbury Plains and a £7,848 thermal imaging camera was taken from a camp in Newcastle, while six exercise bikes worth £13,380 were stolen from the Army base at Catterick.

There were even thefts from the Navy’s Faslane base where the nation’s nuclear deterrent submarines are based, with thieves stealing body armour and tools worth almost £3,000.

Among the more bizarre items logged as stolen were two vacuum cleaner bags worth £18 from Marchwood port, Southampton, a canoe taken from a base in Scotland and printer cartridges valued at £1,752.