Lost Lambourghini not fraud

Glenn Knowles, 35, and Richard Mant, 39,have been cleared of attempting to defraud the insurer of their shared Lambourghini after Knowles said he drove it drunk and forgot where he parked it, The Telegraph reports.

Guildford Crown Court heard the two men reported it to police as stolen, and put in an insurance claim. But they were subsequently charged with conspiring to commit fraud between December 2008, and March 5 last year.

The jury heard that it was not the first expensive car Knowles had lost in similar drunken circumstances. He had previously lost a Mercedes later found parked behind a nightclub. The Lamborghini has not been recovered, despite being fitted with a tracking device.

Drunk driving

The court heard that Mant parked the Lamborghini outside his home in Epsom, Surrey, at about 2pm on 17 December 2008. A neighbour saw it being driven away and it was tracked on automatic number plate recognition systems being driven towards Gillingham, Kent.

Knowles told the court he had driven to Gillingham to see his parents in the pub. He said he might have driven the car whilst drunk to Rochester, where he continued drinking. But he did not think he would have taken it to Maidstone where his drunken evening ended.

He said that before taking a taxi to his home, he had been unable to find the car. He dropped the keys at Mant’s house and didn’t tell anyone what he had done, he told the jury.