A lorry driver has described to a jury his harrowing three-hour kidnap ordeal after he was hijacked on a motorway slip-road near Worcester.

Alan Jones was forced from his cab at gunpoint, hooded and bundled into the boot of a Vauxhall Vectra.

His £171,000 computer load, which he had collected from Evesham.Com on the Vale Business Park in Evesham, was stolen.

Mr Jones was flagged down by two men posing as policemen on the M5 slip-road at Whittington on June 21, last year, and marched to the car with the gun sticking in his back.

"I went into the boot like a sack of spuds," he told Worcester Crown Court. "I was absolutely scared stiff."

The crooks - allegedly members of a gang - handcuffed him with plastic ties making his arms swell up.

He could hardly breathe because the hood covered his nose and mouth.

Mr Jones, a married man aged 57, stifled a sob as he recalled: "I was so sure that I'd seen my wife for the last occasion.

"I thought I was going to die. I had seen the gun and thought this is an organisation not a fly-by-night one-off job."

He was eventually released around midnight in the Swindon area and tried to get help from a gipsy encampment.

When that failed, he walked to a motorway service station and another truck driver dialled 999.

Mr Jones told how he was quizzed by police in Swindon for three hours and accused of being a member of the gang before a doctor confirmed his injuries were caused by his ordeal.

On trial are: Aaron Johnson, aged 19, his brother Simon Johnson, 21, and their father Frederick Johnson, 43, all of Culmington, Stirchley, Telford; Andrew Currie, 34, of Bourneside Drive, Brookside, Telford; Cutler, 33, of Ellis Peters Drive, Telford; Price, 47, of West Road, Wellington; Terence Devine, 38, of Coronation Road, Walsall Wood, Walsall; Philip Dolphin, 40, of Bishopdale, Brookside, Telford, and Stephen Booth, 39, of Hurleybrook Way, Leegomery, Telford.

All nine defendants deny conspiracy to rob Mr Jones and conspiracy to kidnap him.

Cutler and Price deny possession of a firearm during a robbery.

Cutler and Simon Johnson also plead not guilty to the false imprisonment of an unnamed man on December 12, 2001, and possession of a firearm with intent to commit false imprisonment.

The jury have been told that Cutler, Price and Devine have admitted to conspiracy to steal the lorry.

The trial continues on Monday.