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20/07/2010
Five Jailed For Oxford Street Smash And Grab
Five men, who stole over £325,000 worth of designer watches following a smash and grab raid at an Oxford Street jewellers, have been jailed for a total of 26 years.
Anthony Michael Leader, 20, of Sidmouth Street, Bloomsbury and Reed Roberts, 19, of Cubitt Street, Bloomsbury were jailed for four years; Matthew Pitt, 26, of Fleet Road, Camden and Craig Wallace, 22, of Sussex Way, islington were jailed for six years; and Kether Whatley, 23, of Clock View Crescent, Islington, was jailed for five years, with a further one year sentence, to run consecutively, for handling stolen goods from a separate robbery.
The robbery took place at the Ernest Jones store on Oxford Street on September 5, 2009. Three motorbikes, all carrying a pillion passenger, mounted the pavement outside the store, as staff were dressing the windows before opening.
The passengers then got off the bike and used sledgehammers to break a side window and steal 46 Breitling and Rolex watches, worth a total of £332,010, before fleeing across Oxford Street on the bikes, riding across the pavement through crowds of pedestrians and heading north up Marylebone Lane.
An off duty police officer captured footage of their escape on his mobile phone.
Officers from Westminster were called to a garage block on the Triangle Estate in Islington later that day after a group of motorbikes travelling at speed were spotted in the area.
They were seen leaving them in a lock-up garage on the estate. Inside one of the garages, officers found four stolen motorbikes, a claw hammer, an empty helmet bag and clothing.
Five men were arrested an all pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on June 25. The sixth suspect has not been caught.
Commenting on the convictions, Detective Sergeant Richard Baker of the Westminster Crime Squad, said: "By getting these five men off the streets I am sure we have prevented a significant number of further smash and grabs from occurring in central London and, in the process, helped to reassure West End retailers that we take this problem very seriously and are continuing to reduce the number of incidents that occur."
(KMcA/GK)
Anthony Michael Leader, 20, of Sidmouth Street, Bloomsbury and Reed Roberts, 19, of Cubitt Street, Bloomsbury were jailed for four years; Matthew Pitt, 26, of Fleet Road, Camden and Craig Wallace, 22, of Sussex Way, islington were jailed for six years; and Kether Whatley, 23, of Clock View Crescent, Islington, was jailed for five years, with a further one year sentence, to run consecutively, for handling stolen goods from a separate robbery.
The robbery took place at the Ernest Jones store on Oxford Street on September 5, 2009. Three motorbikes, all carrying a pillion passenger, mounted the pavement outside the store, as staff were dressing the windows before opening.
The passengers then got off the bike and used sledgehammers to break a side window and steal 46 Breitling and Rolex watches, worth a total of £332,010, before fleeing across Oxford Street on the bikes, riding across the pavement through crowds of pedestrians and heading north up Marylebone Lane.
An off duty police officer captured footage of their escape on his mobile phone.
Officers from Westminster were called to a garage block on the Triangle Estate in Islington later that day after a group of motorbikes travelling at speed were spotted in the area.
They were seen leaving them in a lock-up garage on the estate. Inside one of the garages, officers found four stolen motorbikes, a claw hammer, an empty helmet bag and clothing.
Five men were arrested an all pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on June 25. The sixth suspect has not been caught.
Commenting on the convictions, Detective Sergeant Richard Baker of the Westminster Crime Squad, said: "By getting these five men off the streets I am sure we have prevented a significant number of further smash and grabs from occurring in central London and, in the process, helped to reassure West End retailers that we take this problem very seriously and are continuing to reduce the number of incidents that occur."
(KMcA/GK)
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