Three men found guilty of plotting to murder £54m Securitas robber Paul Allen
Three men have been found guilty of plotting to murder a member of the Securitas heist gang that stole £54m in Britain’s biggest-ever cash robbery.
Paul Allen, 46, was left paralysed from the chest down after he was shot twice as he stood in the kitchen of his home in Woodford, east London, on 11 July 2019.
The former cage fighter lived in the large detached rented house with his partner and three young children after being released from an 18-year prison sentence over the 2006 raid of a cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
Staff held at gunpoint. Pic: PA
Much of the £54m loaded into a 7.5-tonne lorry – after the gang kidnapped the Securitas manager and his family and tied up staff at gunpoint – has never been recovered.
After the robbery, Allen fled to Morocco with his friend and heist mastermind Lee Murray, a former cage fighter, before being extradited back to the UK.
Stewart Ahearne, Louis Ahearne, Daniel Kelly. Pics: Met Police/Kent Police/PA
Attack likened Hollywood blockbuster
Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, denied conspiring to murder him between 26 June and 12 July 2019 but were found guilty after an Old Bailey trial.
Prosecutors said the background to the shooting was that Allen – who did not give evidence in the trial – was a “sophisticated” career criminal, but did not suggest a motive for the murder plot.
Metropolitan Police detective superintendent Matt Webb described the Ahearnes and Kelly as “hardened organised criminals”, who “acted together in a well-planned and orchestrated manner to shoot their victim”.
“This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different,” he said.
“This was horrific criminality. The court heard how this was a clear and defined attempt to take a man’s life with those responsible making significant efforts to ensure this was successful.”
Paul Allen was in the kitchen when he was shot. Pic: Met Police
Swiss museum heist
The month before the shooting, the Ahearne brothers and Kelly carried out a heist of the Museum of Far Eastern Arts in Geneva, where they stole more than $3.5m (£2.78m) worth of Ming dynasty antiques, the court heard.
They flew to Hong Kong, where they sold a porcelain bowl at an auction house before the Ming vase was recovered by an undercover officer posing as a buyer at a central London hotel.
The Ahearne brothers were jailed in Switzerland over the raid, while three men, including ex-West Ham academy footballer Kaine Wright were jailed in the UK over their roles in the plot to sell the £2m antique.
Gang stole Chinese Ming Dynasty vase. Pic: Met Police/PA
A cup stolen from a Geneva museum. Pic: Met Police/PA
Wright and Kelly are also wanted in Japan over the robbery of a Tokyo jewellery store in 2015 in which a security guard was punched in the face.
They and another man are alleged to have posed as customers before smashing the glass showcases and stealing jewellery valued at 106,272,000 yen – about £630,000, according to details revealed in a lengthy extradition battle.
The day before Mr Allen’s shooting, Kelly and Louis Ahearne used a Renault Captur rented by Stewart Ahearne in a burglary on a gated community in Kent, the court heard.
The pair, along with another man, posed as police officers, even fixing a blue flashing light to the car, to gain access to the grounds, then broke into an apartment to steal money, handbags and designer trainers.
They were each sentenced to five years in jail for the crime in 2020.
The same rented vehicle used was used as the “mission car” as the Ahearne brothers and Kelly travelled from their home turf in Woolwich, southeast London, prosecutors said.
The court heard they had fitted a tracking device to Allen’s family Mercedes to follow his movements.
Paul Allen rented a home in east London. Pic: PA
A bullet casing found in the back garden. Pic: Met Police
‘He’s been shot’
He was stood in the kitchen just after 11pm as at least six bullets were fired from a Glock handgun from the fence line of his back garden, two of which hit him in the hand and throat.
His partner Jade Bovingdon, was heard screaming, “He’s been shot, he’s been shot.”
A private security guard provided first aid and armed police took over before paramedics arrived.
Allen was taken to hospital for emergency treatment and underwent an operation to remove a bullet lodged in his spinal cord. He now uses a wheelchair.
Five shell casings were recovered close to a summer house, while DNA on swabs taken from a nearby fence panel was matched to Kelly and Louis Ahearne, jurors were told.
The Ahearne brothers made no comment when they were arrested but Kelly said in a prepared statement he had only heard about the shooting of Allen three days later.
“Upon release, I would even like to see how he is,” he said. “I have got no issues with him; I’ve known him for 25 years, and we have been friends the whole time.”
Spring sunshine will return to parts of the UK in time for Mother’s Day and continue into next week – potentially bringing the hottest day of the year so far, forecasters have said.
Sky weather producer Kirsty McCabe said Mothering Sunday was likely to be a “mostly fine day with bright or sunny spells once early low cloud and drizzle clears”.
She predicted there would be “temperatures near or above average” for most places.
Afterwards, however, high pressure is set to dominate. There is a good chance the highest temperature of the year so far will be reached by the middle of next week, topping the high of 21.3C (70F) recorded on 20 March.
However, the far north and west of the British Isles are likely to be cloudier and windier with a risk of rain.
The Met Office has also forecast that warm conditions will return on Sunday after a brief, changeable period in what it called “typical spring fashion”.
Central and inland areas should have the warmest weather on Mother’s Day, with its forecasters also predicting “a short-lived spell of unsettled weather this weekend”.
A woman enjoys the warmer weather in London’s Green Park. Pic: PA
But the Met Office added the country would “transition back towards a blocked weather pattern as high pressure builds on Sunday and dominates our weather through much of next week”.
Honor Criswick, a meteorologist from the agency, said the high pressure would “stick around as we head into next week, bringing some fine and settled conditions, perhaps even some warm sunshine”.
Partial solar eclipse in parts of UK
Ms Criswick said Sunday morning would be cloudy, with possible drizzle and mist, but that would give way to a dry day with “some sunny spells, particularly across central and inland areas of the UK”.
She predicted there would be “quite a settled start to the week next week, lots of sunny spells and also some quite warm temperatures”.
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Meanwhile, a partial solar eclipse will be visible in parts of the UK between 10am and noon on Saturday.
Those in the east of the country will have the best chance of seeing it.
The phenomenon occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth. However, the three planetary bodies will not be completely aligned, meaning only part of the sun will be obscured this weekend.
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