A thief who siphoned off thousands of litres of fuel from a pipeline has sentenced to five years in prison.

Roger Gull was part of the criminal operation which involved drilling into the high-pressure pipelines in Kent, stealing fuel worth millions of pounds.

The 51-year-old used a false name to rent a barn at the grade-II listed Chevening estate near Sevenoaks in July 2013, which was Nick Clegg’s country residence at the time.

He tried to tell officers from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate that he was working for an engineering firm working on the M25.

But Gull, formerly of Upminster Road in North Rainham, was scuppered by the directorate when they found what they described as an “impromptu fuel refinery”.

Officers carried out a raid in August 2014 where they found a lorry trailer and two metal shipping containers.

They also found 21 1,000-litre plastic containers and a hose running from a multi-commodity fuel pipeline and along the perimeter of the field into the compound for a distance of 250 metres.

Gull’s case went to trial at Maidstone Crown Court in July, where he was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to steal hydrocarbon oils between July 2013 and August 2014, along with two offences of money laundering.

Prosecutor Dale Sullivan told the court that millions of gallons of fuel were stolen from “incursion sites” in the country between June 2013 and November 2014.

Gull had run a number of sites and arranged the storage, processing and distribution of the fuel, Mr Sullivan said.

His son Ryan Gull, 28, and employee Thomas Campbell were cleared of charges brought against them.

Det Cons Dean Sycamore from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate said Roger Gull had compromised pipelines at a number of sites across the UK.

He said: “Gull was involved in the theft of millions of litres of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel, undertaking a number of extremely dangerous techniques, breaching pipelines which operate at very high pressure.

“THis was a truly vast operation which would have earned him considerable dividends, as he sold fuel in huge containers each able to house 1,000 litres at a time.

“His greed has now earned a lengthy prison sentence and rest assured we will now look to use the Proceeds of Crime Act to take back any criminal gains Gull has made.”