Three men jailed for plotting to murder £54m Securitas robber

Three men have been jailed for plotting to kill a former cagefighter convicted of Britain’s largest cash robbery.

Paul Allen, then 41, was paralysed for life after shots were fired at his large detached rented home in Woodford Green, north-east London, in 2019.

A jury at the Old Bailey was told the intention was to kill him, and that the attackers “very nearly succeeded”, before convicting brothers Louis Ahearne, 36, and Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, of plotting to murder Allen with others unknown.

Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC sentenced Kelly, who did not appear at court, to 36 years in prison with an extended licence period of five years while she jailed Louis Ahearne for 33 years and Stewart Ahearne for 30 years.

The judge said on Friday: “I have no doubt that this agreement to murder Paul Allen involved other people apart from the three of you and that you three were motivated by a promise of financial gain.

“The culpability of each one of you is very high.

“The harm caused to the victim was very serious – indeed short of killing him it could hardly be more serious. He is currently paralysed and relies on others for every single need.”

She said injuries like Mr Allen’s “remain life-threatening”.

The judge singled Kelly out as the shooter and highlighted him having been “higher up in the chain” of the conspiracy, as she also told of him being the subject of two outstanding extradition requests – one to Switzerland for a Geneva museum burglary and another to Japan for an alleged robbery.

She found him to be legally dangerous.

Kelly’s barrister, Ruth Jones, said she could offer limited mitigation for her client as he had chosen “a life of criminality”.

The defendant has 20 previous convictions for 60 offences, starting with shoplifting when he was 11 and escalating to convictions for aggravated burglary, carrying weapons and supplying class A drugs.

Louis Ahearne has six convictions for 14 offences – including dwelling house burglaries and possessing a stun gun – while Stewart Ahearne has nine convictions for 26 offences including supply of class A drugs and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

During the trial, prosecutors alleged the background to the shooting was that Allen was a “sophisticated” career criminal.

He was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court in 2009 for his part in Britain’s biggest armed robbery, at Securitas in Kent, in which £54 million in cash was stolen, much of which has never been recovered, the court heard.

By 2019, Allen had been released from prison and moved from south London to a large detached property in Woodford, north-east London, where he lived with his partner and young children.

The court heard how the defendants had planned the shooting carefully, carried out surveillance and fitted a tracker device to the victim’s car to track his movements.

At around 11.09pm on July 11 2019, six shots were fired through the back doors and windows, striking Mr Allen in the neck as he stood in the kitchen.

Detective Superintendent Matt Webb said: “The court heard how the defendants, hardened organised criminals, acted together in a well-planned and orchestrated manner to shoot their victim.

“It is only for the intervention of police first responder and medical professionals that the victim wasn’t killed.

“This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different. 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.”

During the police investigation, DNA was recovered from the garden fence and matched Kelly and Louis Ahearne.

Bullet casings in the garden were matched to a Glock handgun that was compatible with a laser sight recovered from Kelly’s address.

The court heard that the three men snatched Ming dynasty antiques worth more than 3.5 million US dollars (£2.78 million) from a Swiss museum shortly before the murder plot.

The trio were also said to have gone to a gated community in Kent disguised as police officers days before the shooting, burgling one apartment and attempting to burgle another.

Jurors heard agreed facts about the defendants’ “previous criminality” relating to a burglary at the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva on June 1 2019, a month before Allen was shot.

Three pieces of Ming-era porcelain were taken from the museum, which had a combined insurance value of 3,580,000 US dollars (£2,760,000).

The items were an early 15th century bottle with a secret pomegranate decoration, a small wine cup known as the “chicken cup” and a 14th century An Huan phoenix design bowl.

The defendants flew to Hong Kong on June 14 2019, where they attempted to sell the phoenix bowl at an auction house.

On October 16 2020, Stewart Ahearne was arrested with another man at a London hotel as they tried to sell the Ming vase to an undercover police officer.

A later search of a property revealed a passport in the name of Stewart Ahearne and a book on Ming dynasty antiques, the court was told.

The brothers were extradited from Switzerland to face trial over the shooting.

Avirup Chaudhuri, for Louis Ahearne, said his client has been described by prison operation staff as a “model prisoner” who “goes above and beyond his duties to support everyone”.

“It is his primary concern now that he does his best to set a better example to his son,” Mr Chaudhuri added. “He has only seen him once in the last five years.”

Terrence Woods, for Stewart Ahearne, argued that his client had “no control” over the events of the shooting and was not present at the scene.

Mr Woods said the older Ahearne brother had developed into a “model prisoner” and told of how he made a speech saying female prison staff deserved the support of prisoners after an incident at HMP Wandsworth which led to the conviction of a member of staff.

Louis Ahearne, from Greenwich, south-east London, and Stewart Ahearne and Kelly, both of no fixed address, had denied the charge against them.