Osborne moped raider trapped by open visor and chewed fingernails
HUNTING for victims with his hammer-wielding accomplice, this moped raider must have thought no one could identify him.
But this chilling image gave him away because his eyes could be seen behind his visor. A detective recognised Claude Parkinson from a mark on the bridge of his nose and from his chewed fingernails.
He was the ‘Artful Dodger’ in a gang run by Fagin-style boss Shamsul Chowdhury.
Police believe they were stealing as many as 33 mobile phones an hour in London – even trying to lift one off George Osborne.
When they were captured, the robbery rate dropped 40 per cent across Westminster. Yesterday Parkinson, 18, and two accomplices aged 15 and 16, laughed as they were jailed with Chowdhury.
The 40-year- old supermarket cashier would text the teenagers with a list of phones they should snatch, offering up to £200 a handset. In one 42-day period this spring, Chowdhury sold on 327 stolen items worth £ 52,150 to buyers in Bangladesh.
At his home police found 35 stolen phones, laptops and other goods stolen during residential burglaries. He kept a meticulous log of all his transactions.
Led by Parkinson and armed with a hammer and a tyre-iron, Chowdhury’s teenage charges roared around the capital looking for pedestrians texting or making calls. They would mount the pavement and snatch their phones.
Mr Osborne narrowly escaped having his phone stolen as he left BBC headquarters in Portland Place on May 4.
‘I was physically unharmed but felt shocked and stunned,’ the former Chancellor and now Evening Standard editor said in a victim impact statement.
‘The incident happened so quickly that I barely registered what had happened until afterwards. The scooter was so close that it almost brushed past me.
‘Had it hit me, I have no doubt I would have been seriously injured.’
Another victim, Frederick Frank, said: ‘ The single rider (Parkinson) snatched my phone in his left hand, calmly finding the power button and switching it off before accelerating off.
‘The twin riders behind him were whooping with joy.
‘They seemed like new recruits being shown the ropes by a modern day Artful Dodger.’
Judge David Tomlinson said: ‘I consider what happened here was not far away from a cam- paign of professional, organised robbery that involved a significant degree of planning.’
He told Chowdhury: ‘ You plainly exploited young offenders, however streetwise they may have been when they negotiated prices with you.
‘It is a particular aggravating feature that you were working with young people without the slightest concern about their well-being and the risk they posed to the wider community.’ Yesterday Parkinson and the two youths, who cannot be named because of their age, laughed and joked with each other throughout the hearing and loitered in the dock afterwards to chat and wave to friends and relatives in the public gallery at Southwark Crown Court.
All from Islington, they admitted conspiracy to rob in stealing 103 phones between April 18 Above: Parkinson was identified by his eyes and fingernails. Far left: Parkinson unmasked Left: Chowdhury and May 5. Parkinson was sentenced to five years and three months and the teenagers were each sentenced to four years and two months.
All three had convictions for offences including theft.
Chowdhury, of Tower Hamlets in East London, was sentenced to four years and ten months after pleading guilty to handling stolen goods.
The incriminating photograph, which was printed in the Daily Mail, was taken by BBC cameraman Ian Lawrence on a long lens while he was waiting at a bus stop.
‘It happened so quickly’