MOTOR-MAD Nicholas Attwell loved driving cars. Hatchbacks, saloons, coupes and sports cars - he just could not get enough.

There was one problem. None of the cars he drove actually belonged to him.

Attwell was a serial vehicle thief. One day, after more than 20 years of pinching cars of all shapes and sizes, he decided to go for the ultimate joyride - in a £30,000 concrete mixer.

The 42-year-old made off with the mixer and spent three days riding around giving strangers lifts.

He snatched the mixer from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, after finding the keys and a handful of fuel cards.

And he was eventually stopped by police on the M6 at Carlisle heading for Scotland - with a hitchhiker by his side.

In the mixer's cab, was a pile of receipts for £400 worth of fuel.

Police were alerted because the giant mixer was revolving, and the officers were pretty sure no one would be taking delivery of a ton of concrete at 4am.

Yesterday, a judge put a stop to Attwell's antics when he jailed the 42-year-old for 12 months and ordered him disqualified for three years.

Attwell pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to stealing the lorry and the Citroen, two sets of fuel cards, driving while disqualified and obtaining fuel by deception.

He had 76 offences taken into consideration, most for fraudulently obtaining fuel.

The court heard how his motoring obsession started in 1977 He had been released from jail five months before his concrete mixer adventure - the fourth time he had been locked up for stealing vehicles.

Attwell started his journey on May 15 from his home in Christchurch, Dorset, as a paying passenger on a bus, said prosecutor Aisha Wadoodi.

Three days later he arrived in Gloucestershire, where he took the Citroen from a garage forecourt.

Disqualified Attwell drove it around the country. Then on June 2 he arrived at Northallerton, where the parked concrete mixer caught his eye.

Rod Hunt, defending, said: "He was a happy wanderer going around the country and picking hitch-hikers up.

"He knows what he is doing and he can't help himself. He gains pleasure from taking vehicles, driving them around the countryside and giving lifts."

Judge Peter Fox told him: "You're not a bad man, it's just that you won't stop taking other people's vehicles"

As he was taken to the cells, Attwell smiled at the judge and said: "Thank you."