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
Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, denied conspiring to murder him between June 26 and July 12 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.
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.
Gang stole Chinese Ming Dynasty vase. Pic: Met Police/PA
A cup stolen from a Geneva museum. Pic: Met Police/PA
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.
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
‘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.”
