Yesterday the Chronicle & Echo reported on a petrol station manager in Northampton who has taken to naming and shaming drivers who fill up and flee without paying.

Jim Keary, manager of the W Grose garage in Queens Park Parade, Kingsthorpe, decided to publicly shame motorists following a recent spate of "bilking" offences.

Following an inquiry from the Chronicle & Echo, police have revealed 1,860 people drove away from forecourts without paying for their fuel last year.

The figures, taken from April 2008 to March 2009, include 979 fill and run incidents in the western area of the county, which includes Northampton.

Across the whole county the figures equate to 35 people every week.

A police spokesman told the Chronicle & Echo the force now has four dedicated police officers to tackle the large number of offences.

Officer attempt to track drivers by using CCTV, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology and by checking DVLA databases.

Mr Keary said police in the county were now very good at helping petrol stations tackle fill and run crimes.

He said: "I've been in the industry for 25 years now and we had to battle with everybody to get a decent response from the police for a long time.

"But for the past five or six years they have been fantastic.

"They recognise that people stealing petrol are not just stealing petrol, it also fuels other crimes."

He said his garage suffered three drive-offs last weekend. He added: "It comes in spates. You usually know when the police have caught them because it suddenly stops. It was probably six or eight weeks since we had an incident and then all of a sudden we had three last weekend."

Gerry Hartgrove, owner of the Ashtree service station, in Duston, said his staff were constantly on the look out for potential problems.

He said: "Vigilance is the word really. You have to keep your eyes open all the time and try to see through people.

"Fortunately it is not something that affects us too much but it can be a problem."