A Cumbria factory worker has admitted being at the heart of a £100,000 scam to sell stolen Pirelli tyres.

Mark Claxton told the city’s crown court how he was the man inside the Dalston Road factory, helping to ship out hundreds of tyres which were then sold on eBay.

The 55-year-old, of The Square, Cummersdale, made the revelations as he took the stand against Barry White, 38, who has denied a charge of conspiracy to steal.

Opening the case, Roger Brown, prosecuting, alleged that tyres were delivered from Carlisle to Scotland in apparently legitimate consignments over a 10-month period up to May 2014. They were then sold by White, of Napier Avenue, Bathgate.

White, the court heard, was the man behind the eBay account, allegedly selling 358 Pirelli tyres in 99 separate transactions. They are said to have a retail value of £102,000, and were sold for about £62,000.

Only when a security manager was alerted to the eBay sales did an investigation begin.

Claxton, who has admitted a conspiracy charge, was one of the first to give evidence. He was a shift supervisor at the time for DHL, which operated a warehouse on Pirelli’s Carlisle site.

Claxton took tyres without permission on different occasions. He placed them on a trailer which was transported from Carlisle to Scotland by lorry driver Graham Wait.

He claimed he was persuaded to get involved by Wait, and thought the lorry driver wanted them for motorsport.

“I was in a desperate financial state to be honest,” he told the court. “I just thought it was going to be a one-off. He kept asking me for more tyres. I did show concerns. He said, ‘Don’t worry, it will be all right’.”

Claxton added: “I knew I was going to get caught because of the numbers (of tyres). I was stupid. I just felt trapped in what I was doing.”

The jury was told that Wait had indicated he would plead guilty to the conspiracy charge later this week.

Wait, 58, of Mill Road, Bathgate, paid Claxton £40 for each stolen tyre he sourced. It was alleged that once in Scotland the tyres would be sold on eBay by White.

Barry White  has admitted selling £102,000 worth of stolen Pirelli tyres on eBay.