G4S security van driver who stole £1million
He’s caught... but police can recover just £60,000
A G4S security guard admitted stealing almost £1million in cash from his armoured van – but police recovered only £60,000 after it took ten hours to be reported missing.
Detectives are now hunting potential accomplices in a desperate search to trace the missing £910,000.
Father-of-three Joel March, 36, yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing £970,000 from his G4S van when he appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court.
March had been seen parking his distinctive blue van in a leafy residential street in Clapham, south-west London, just before 9am on Tuesday morning, the court was told. He then returned to it several times before finally disappearing at 9.40am.
The vehicle, which is fitted with a tracker, was left on double yellow lines all day, during which time it was given a parking ticket. Ten hours after it had been abandoned, G4S – the biggest security company in the UK for handling, transporting and processing cash – alerted police that it had gone missing, and officers found it at 7pm.
March, who is also from Clapham, was traced to an address in nearby Brixton on Wednesday afternoon, where officers from Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad discovered £60,000 along with new clothes and shoes.
Opening the case, prosecutor Amanda McCabe said: ‘He had loaded the van with the money prior to making scheduled deliveries, and from the tracking data the defendant left the yard at 8.54am on April 23 and parked the van at 8.58am.
‘He returned to the vehicle at 9.37am and left it again and finally returned to the vehicle at 9.40am.
‘G4S did not record a report concerning the van until some ten hours after it had been abandoned, and it was found that money that should have been loaded into various lockers hadn’t been.’
When interviewed, March ‘complained about G4S as employers and about his own mental health’, the court heard. The prosecutor added that there were others potentially involved in the case and police inquiries are ongoing.
Bruce Reid, defending, said March would not be applying for bail before he is sentenced at Inner London Crown Court next month.
Earlier, a resident of the Clapham street where the security van was dumped said he had been intrigued to see it in his road for so long. The man, who did not wish to be named, told how he finally rang G4S at around 5.30pm but ‘they didn’t seem particularly concerned’. He added: ‘I thought it was weird because you never see those vans here.
‘I saw it again at lunchtime as I was going out. I looked in the front and I saw a phone, an ID badge and a driver job-sheet on the passenger seat.
‘In retrospect, I should have called the police earlier.’
Officers finally arrived at 7pm on Tuesday evening. Members of March’s immediate family also turned up an hour later and appeared to be distressed.
March’s mother, Rowena Watson, who lives with him and his three children in Clapham, told The Sun: ‘He was a bit stressed before this but I can’t think why he would do it. As far as I know, he never had any money issues.’
A spokesman for G4S said: ‘These incidents are extremely rare and we are working closely with the Metropolitan Police to resolve the matter.’
March admitted one count of theft by an employee and was remanded into custody.
G4S has been dogged by controversies and problems.
In the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, the firm had been contracted to supply security guards. But when the company admitted at the last minute that it had not recruited anywhere near enough, the Army had to step in.
In 2014 it was forced to repay the Government money it had been paid for tagging and monitoring offenders in Scotland after it was revealed it had been charging for people who were dead or in prison.
And a riot took place at HMP Birmingham in 2016, which was operated at the time by G4S, with 600 prisoners complaining of poor food and being on ‘lockdown’ in their cells for most of the day.
‘He had loaded the van with money’