The gang behind Britain's largest robbery face the possibility of life sentences after being convicted on Monday at the end of a seven-month trial at the Old Bailey criminal court in London. Police are still trying to trace more than half of the ?53 million stolen in an audacious raid on a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent, almost two years ago, and some key members of the gang are still at large.
The jury returned their verdicts after 36 hours of deliberation over eight days and convicted Lea Rusha, Stuart Royle, Roger Coutts, Emir Hysenaj and Jetmir Bucpapa of conspiracy to kidnap and rob. The diverse team of criminals from south London, Kent and Albania will be sentenced today after pleas of mitigation have been made on their behalf.
Royle, who has not been attending the trial and has remained in his cell in Belmarsh prison after dismissing his defense team, was being asked last night if he wanted to attend today's sentencing.
Two other defendants, John Fowler, who was also charged with conspiracy, and Keith Borer, who was charged with handling stolen goods, were both acquitted. Michelle Hogg, the hairdresser who made the disguises used by the robbers, was acquitted last year and gave evidence against her former co-defendants. She is now under a witness protection scheme.
The gang received the verdicts impassively, after the trial judge, Justice Penry-Davey, warned the court that the jury's decision was to be received in silence. Some of the robbers shook hands with Fowler after he was cleared. Bucpapa, the young Albanian who was a key figure in the plot, laughed and smiled. The judge excused the jury from ever serving again.
Outside the court, Superintendent Paul Gladstone of Kent police, which spent ?5 million on the investigation, welcomed the verdict.
"I am extremely satisfied with the results," he said. "It was an extremely complex case."
"This crime was, at its heart, a crime of violence," Nigel Pilkington of the Crown Prosecution Service said.
He paid tribute to the Securitas depot manager, Colin Dixon, and his wife, Lynn, who with their child were kidnapped and held at gun-point so that the robbery could go ahead.
"The events of that night will no doubt stay with those people for the rest of their lives," said Pilkington of the Dixons and the 14 Securitas employees who were also in fear of their lives during the robbery. He added that attempts to reclaim almost ?32 million still missing from the raid would continue.
"This is not the end of the matter for these criminals," he said. "We intend to seize their ill-gotten gains, wherever they may be."
Roger Coe-Salazar, who headed the Kent prosecution service team, said of the conspiracy: "It was very clever in parts and very naive in others. There were some very sophisticated preparations and some very silly mistakes, but it's quite wrong for it to end up being romanticized in an Ocean's 12 way. There is nothing romantic about a child being held at gunpoint by a masked man."
Borer, who was also acquitted, said that he had been unable to sleep for the past week during the jury's deliberations.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees