THE lorries used to kidnap a Securitas manager and his family were seen at the farm of a suspect 24 hours before the £53million robbery, a court heard.

Workers at Hop Engineering in Staplehurst noticed a white and red truck parked near Elderden Farm, the home of John Fowler, 58, on February 20 last year.

Fowler is said to be part of a gang of masked robbers who raided the high-security Securitas depot in Tonbridge the following day.

Engineer Lee Rae told jurors at the Old Bailey he noticed a white lorry parked in a field at Elderden Farm near his workshop.

Mr Rae said: "There is a paddock when you come along the lane and there was a white lorry parked in it. I didn't really take much notice of it. I had never seen it before."

He added that he later saw a red van in Mr Fowler's yard. "It looked like it had writing on the side but I couldn’t see what it said because of the angle," he said.

The court has heard how Securitas manager Colin Dixon, 52, was allegedly kidnapped by robbers posing as policeman before being transferred to a white van and driven to Elderden Farm.

It is claimed his wife, Lynne, 46, and child were also abducted and driven to the same farm in a red Parcelforce van before the raid.

When asked by prosecutor David Jeremy, QC, Mr Rae said he couldn't be sure if the red van was the same as he saw at the farm.

In police interview, suspect Keith Borer, a sign writer, admitted pasting a Parcelforce logo onto a red van belonging to Stuart Royle, 48, another suspect in the trial and colleague of Fowler.

He claimed he carried out work on the van at Elderden Farm on February 20, the same day Mr Rae spotted the lorry. The van was allegedly abandoned by the conspirators two days after the robbery.

Fowler, of Chart Hill Road, Staplehurst; Royle, of Allen Street, Maidstone; Roger Coutts, of The Green, Welling; Lea Rusha, of Lambersart Close, Southborough; Jetmir Bucpapa, of Hadlow Road, Tonbridge; Ermir Hysenaj, of New Road, Crowborough; and Michelle Hogg, of Brinklow Crescent, Woolwich, have all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to have in their possession a firearm.

Borer, from Hampstead Lane, Yalding, stands accused of dishonestly receiving £6,100 of stolen Securitas money, which he denies.

The trial continues.