Security worker denies being the ‘inside man’ for £167k raids gang
CONTACT WITH ROBBER WAS ‘TO BUY CANNABIS FROM HIM’
A SECURITY worker is on trial accused of being the ‘inside man’ who helped armed robbers steal £167,000.
Thomas Keane, 52, denies having any involvement in three raids at banks across Greater Manchester, and has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to rob.
Jurors at a Manchester Crown Court trial heard that Santander banks in Walkden and Ramsbottom were targeted, as well as a Natwest bank in Moss Side, as G4S staff replenished cash machines.
Prosecutors allege Mr Keane, from Leigh, played a ‘pivotal role’ in allegedly tipping off robbers about where and when the machines would be refilled.
Five men have already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy, the jury heard.
The first incident, described by prosecutor Jeremy Lasker as a ‘violent and determined’ attack, happened at about 1am on September 7, 2017, at Santander at the Ellesmere Centre in Walkden, Salford.
The ‘meticulously planned’ plot saw masked men, including one armed with a shotgun and another with a handgun, target a male worker.
One robber told him: “Get down on the floor or I will put a hole in you.”
The worker later said that he felt ‘scared for his life,’ and that ‘all he could think of was his kids.’ The robbers got away with £125,000.
More than six months later, on March 25 last year, another G4S crew was at Natwest bank on Claremont Road in Moss Side restocking a cash machine.
Realising what was happening, crew members were able to lock themselves in the bank, and the robbers were unable to strike and left empty handed.
More than a week later their next target was the Santander bank, on Bolton Street in Ramsbottom, on April 3. The G4S crew arrived at 7.30pm to replenish the cash machine. One worker had taken a box containing £42,000 into the bank. The two workers then realised they were being attacked, and locked themselves in the bank like they did at Moss Side. But this time the robbers were not deterred, and were able to smash their way through the glass door. They made off with the £42,000 which the worker had on him. Jurors were told the robbers used a red Ford Focus as a getaway car – earlier stolen during a burglary in Southport. As they sped away from the bank, they tried to overtake a Land Rover driver who had spotted the armed robbery and told his wife, sitting beside him, to call the police. The robbers tried to overtake the Land Rover, and as the road became narrower the Ford Focus clipped the back of it and they both lost control. Four robbers ditched the car and ran away, leaving weapons and tools behind in the car. Prosecutors say these three incidents were the work of the same team, which they allege Mr Keane played an important part in. Opening for the prosecution, Mr Lasker said: “The Crown say that this defendant was part of this conspiracy together with Prosecutor Jeremy Lasker those who have already pleaded guilty. “He was the inside man working for G4S. “The Crown say that he was, albeit playing a different role to the others, not only involved in the conspiracy, but he actually played a pivotal role in providing crucial information that the actual robbers would need in order to put their plan into effort.
“Far from being a very unlucky G4S crew member who had been the victim of two of these robberies, in fact he was found to have been in contact with at least two of the robbers and at times, the prosecution say, which are highly relevant to when the robberies took place.”
Prosecutors say that cell site data and phone records prove Mr Keane’s involvement in the plot. But Mr Keane says the reason he had contacted one robber, Jack Pennington, was because he was buying cannabis from him.
Prosecutors claim this is a ‘desperate attempt to talk his way out of all this.’
Mr Keane, of Green Lane, Leigh, denies one count of conspiracy to rob.
Five other men have pleaded guilty to that charge: Jack Pennington, 28, of Carrfield Avenue, Little Hulton; Lucas Dodd, 19, of Dovecote Lane, Little Hulton; Neil Callaghan, of no fixed abode; Scott Holmes, of Cleggs Lane, Little Hulton; and David Oxton, 34, of Longshaw Lane, Little Hulton.