Thousands of Harry Potter books stolen

Thousands of copies of the new Harry Potter book worth around £1m have been stolen from a trading estate in northern England, police revealed today.

"A trailer containing around £1m worth of books was stolen from Newton-le-Willows trading estate on Merseyside at around 10.30pm on Sunday," a spokeswoman for Merseyside police said.

"The trailer was recovered yesterday in Salford, Greater Manchester, minus its load," she added.

A spokesman for supermarket chain Asda told the Press Association they believed the stolen shipment was destined for them.

"We think they would have been delivered to our Wigan depot and then on to stores across the north of England. Although it is a lot of books, we have ordered around half a million copies so it shouldn't mean we go short," he said.

The much-anticipated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth in J K Rowling's record breaking series about the adventures of a boy wizard, goes on sale in Britain on Saturday. The English edition will be launched simultaneously in the US, Canada, Australia and other countries.

The author's previous book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, became the fastest selling book in history on the first weekend of its publication in July 2000.

Earlier this month, forklift driver Donald Parfitt was sentenced to 180 hours community service after he admitted stealing pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from the printing firm where he worked.

Parfitt, 44, had found the pages in the firm's car park last month, put them in his lunchbox and later tried to sell them to The Sun.