A forklift driver has been revealed as the inside man in a GBP900,000 theft from a mobile phone factory.

The Evening News - Scotland said Eddie Morcombe, 27, helped thieves load a trailer, containing 10,000 Motorola T180 phones, onto a lorry at a Motorola factory last June. The phones, with a retail value of GBP900,000, were never recovered.

The theft happened last June, shortly after the US-owned mobile phone giant announced the closure of the Bathgate factory and a transfer of production to Germany, resulting in 3100 jobs being cut.

Morcombe claimed he was not paid by the organised crime gang responsible. Sentencing was deferred for background reports to be tendered.

Morcombe is the second man to appear in court in connection with the heist. In March, John Griffen was jailed for one year after admitting he was paid GBP2000 for allowing a storage yard to be used to transfer the phones from the Motorola trailer to another truck after the theft.

The theft came two months after components worth GBP1.5 million were discovered missing from the Bathgate plant. Senior staff were questioned after 30,000 circuit boards, worth GBP50 each, vanished from stock rooms.