Man’s neighbour ‘at heart’ of plan court told

A NEAR neighbour of a 65-year-old man shot twice at his farm in a violent armed gang robbery was “at the heart of the conspiracy,” a court was told.

Thomas Cunningham, owner of Don Luigi Italian restaurant in Formby, denies helping to plan the raid which left Charles Baldwin suffering firearm wounds to his knee and foot.

Cunningham, the jury has heard, also lived on Back Lane, the same rural road as Mr Baldwin, and “there had been difficulties between Cunningham and Mr Baldwin over the years.”

Francis McEntee, prosecuting, added: “But nothing, you might imagine, that would warrant Cunningham sending masked raiders into his neighbour’s address.

“However, the link between Mr Baldwin on the one hand, and the others allegedly involved in the robbery, on the other, leads to the inevitable conclusion, we say, that Cunningham was at the heart of this conspiracy.”

The prosecution says Cunningham, 58, was not part of the armed gang who stormed the farm, but he was involved in “planning the offence, and so is part of that conspiracy.” Mr McEntee said: “None of the defendants, other than Thomas Cunningham has any link to Mr Baldwin.”

When interviewed by police, the court heard Cunningham stated it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he had been involved in the robbery.

He said he was a business[man], and “made it plain that he was in his restaurant at the relevant time – that would be on CCTV.”

The Formby eatery – Don Luigi – was named in court by Mr Baldwin, who also named Cunningham when giving his first statement of his ordeal to detectives from hospital bed.

Mr McEntee told the jury: “You may conclude that it would, indeed, be ridiculous to suggest that Cunningham would go into the address to carry out the robbery, as he would have been at risk of being immediately identified by a neighbour who would recognise his build, his gait and his voice.

“We invite you to conclude that his absence from the scene does little to address the weight of the evidence establishing his contacts with those who were patently present.”

The jury was told a man called Alan Daniels, 37, from Kirkby, has pleaded guilty to his part in the robbery and was the ringleader at the farmhouse.

He was the person responsible for shooting Mr Baldwin twice, it was heard, and his DNA was found on the paper knife used to free the gold bracelet from the victim’s wrist.

Shrimpton told detectives he’d “known Thomas Cunningham for a number of years as an associate, he had been to his restaurant, and more recently had done some work on Cunningham’s property jet washing.”

Hemmings said in interview he had read reports of the robbery but might have been scaffolding at the time.

He said he “knew Tommy Cunningham lived in that area...only knew Tommy Cunningham through the chip shop he ran, and may have been to his house, but had never been in.”

During the raid, which the prosecution described as “excessively violent”, with no need to shoot Mr Baldwin, as he was “already under the control” of the gang after they “blew off his summerhouse patio doors”, he also had a gun pressed against his teeth.

The trial continues