Blow by blow, moped gang’s battering ram raid on store
CLAD head to toe in black, their faces hidden by helmets, a pair of moped- riding thieves smash their way into a shop with a battering ram.
Once inside, the two men, one of them wielding a hammer, apparently beat a security guard.
The disturbing scenes were captured on CCTV footage from a mobile phone store and were released yesterday during a trial.
The confrontation was just one of 17 violent raids across London last year, in which thieves brandishing knives and hammers stormed mobile phone shops before fleeing on mopeds, a court heard.
After this raid, however, police arrived and a vicious struggle took place and the thieves were arrested. The security camera images from a shop in North London in August last year were shown to the jury during a trial at Blackfriars Crown Court.
Bobby Kennedy, 22, and Chris Costi, 19, are accused of being part of an armed gang of young men that raided 17 mobile phone shops between May and November in London last year.
They used hammers and knives to break into stock rooms and steal the latest handsets, before making off on waiting mopeds outside, the court heard. It is estimated that the total value of what was stolen and the damage caused to the shops was close to £1million.
Referring to the burglary featured in the CCTV images, one officer said he had ‘never been in a more violent situation than this’ in eight years of policing.
With two men waiting outside with the mopeds, the pictures show another pair using a battering ram to smash the window of the Three mobile phone shop.
Storming in, they can be seen beating a security guard. The court heard how the men outside fled as police arrived, leaving the two others still in the shop.
PC Shaun Cassidy and PC Kirsty Clark were met by two raiders charging at them. PC Clark told the jury she fired her Taser at one but it failed to pen- etrate his leather clothes. She said she was rugby tackled, punched in the face, and thrown through the glass window.
PC Cassidy told the court an ‘ incredibly violent struggle’ lasted around a minute, before a further five officers overpowered the two men. One of them was found to be carrying a 6in knife.
Jurors were earlier told how the gang targeted some shops more than once. The phones were sold on, with some turning up in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Three other gang members – Dylan Castano-Lopez, 19, Alfie Kennedy, 20, brother of Bobby, and Adam Atallah, 21 – have all admitted their part in the conspiracy, the jury heard.
Kennedy, of no fixed address, and Costi, of Hackney, East London, deny conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, and conspiracy to rob. The trial continues.
‘Incredibly violent struggle’