Where there’s smoke there are many fires

In the late ’80s I worked for a small family firm that ran two separate businesses. The foreman of one of these suspected someone was stealing diesel at the processing plant and reported this to the owners.

The Gardaí recommended the foreman discretely monitor the tank levels to find out how much was being taken and how often. After a couple of weeks it was clear that every two or three nights about 100l was going missing.

I was asked to stake out the place for a week. With the promise of overtime I naturally jumped at the chance. Plus I was given a mobile phone. A mobile phone! It was the ’80s remember and mobiles were big clunky contraptions with a handset wired to what looked like a car battery and just as heavy. Even car phones weren’t available in Ireland back then. It was all very exciting.

My first night as Primal PI I hid my van behind a stack of pallets at the side of the compound and waited. Christ the boredom! My watch crawled. Had it stopped? No. The clock on the dash read the same. I was only there an hour. How would I do seven nights of this?

I needn’t have worried. A car pulled up. The driver unlocked the gates to the compound and drove in. A small truck followed soon after and made it’s way toward the tanks. I made the call - my first ever mobile phone call. I got my instructions.

As the visitors were about to leave I started the van. At least I tried to. Panic set in. I’d forgotten to set the ignition to heat first and the engine just wouldn’t fire on cold diesel. Set to heat. Count. 1 … 2 … slowly damn it! … … 3 … … 4. It fired. But I’d been seen. Sweat. Cold sweat. Shaking hands. I gunned the engine as all good TV detectives do and sped around the corner. Gravel flying from the wheels. I parked right across the entrance, turned off the engine and jumped out.

Only now did it dawn on me what I’d let myself into. What was I to do now? My instructions were to block them in but I was told nothing more. What if they forced me to move the van? I locked the door and tossed the keys into a hedge. Fek, that was a mistake! What if they came to attack me? I would have no way to escape.

A figure approached. Ah Primal. It’s yerself. What are ya doing here? We never see you in this yard? It was the plant manager - the foreman had been wise to go straight to the owners.

Ah howya Pat, I croaked. I was driving by and seen the lights on.

Fair ball to ya, Primal. Eh, this man here ran out of diesel and I was giving him a drop to get him as far as a garage. Move that auld van there ’til we let him out.

By now I was shaking like a leaf. What was I to say? Do?

I was still stuttering incoherently when I realised we were now surrounded by a mass of blue flashing lights. One of the cops - a local one I knew - pulled me aside to calm me down. Who were the other people, I asked. Customs and Excise, he said grinning. They’re going to dip both [the manager's and his guest's] tanks. We reckon he [the manager] has been fuelling up half the knackers in the county. And helping himself to a drop too.

The following day I was still rattled. My legs went to jelly and my voice croaked again the day I had to stand up in court and testify against this man. A man I thought I knew. A man I’d drank with at company parties. A man whose house I’d been in once. A man whose son I’d been to school with.

I had listened as evidence of other charges was given. He had been fuelling his own car with red diesel - I had guessed that. He had been stealing red diesel and selling it - I was the key witness that. He had been burning the stolen diesel in his home heating system. He had been siphoning off company money by producing fake invoices. He had been found in possession of stolen goods. Goods that allegedly came via the same individuals he was selling diesel to. And some more that I forget.

One of the Gardaí remarked outside the court later that if they’re at one thing, you can be sure they’re up to a hundred others.

I was reminded of this story by the report this week that the Revenue’s customs section had seized 301 vehicles in 2007 on which VRT had not been paid. Of these, 49 were top of the range cars, on which €1.25m in taxes and penalties was recouped. What was of major interest though, was that many of these cases resulted in full tax audits which recovered a further €1m for the State’s coffers. Just like that Garda said all those years ago, if they were guilty of one offence, they are likely guilty of more. The revenue people realise that.

The same scenario applies elsewhere. Take a politician who is found to have accepted a bribe from a property developer to have land rezoned. Asking what else he has taken bribes for is a reasonable question. It is highly unlikely he is specialising in rezoning bribes.

Take the motorist that is fined for driving at 110km/h in a 100km/h zone, on a good road, in good conditions and with little traffic. Very unfair might be your immediate reaction. But isn’t this the same driver that will do 80km/h in a busy 60km/h? And 65km/h in a 50mk/h in the rain? And 40km/h in a 30km/h outside a school. Your reaction to his being fined for those offences isn’t that it is unfair. This driver hasn’t made a policy decision to speed in 100km/h zones only and that he’ll obey lower limits. And does he specialise in speeding offences? I would doubt it.

Take the builder that installs inferior windows that begin leaking a year later. It would be wise to find out what other poor work he has done. If he is cheating the home-owner, who else is he cheating? The taxman probably. His employees too. If I were to tell you the only thing is ever does wrong is using inferior windows you would laugh at me.

No one who flouts a particular law or ethic flouts only that. It makes a fair case for the so-called zero tolerance.