Victims of £70k raid ‘found jeweller wearing one of their missing rings’
A MAN was jailed yesterday after the victims of a £70,000 theft found a jeweller wearing one of their missing treasures, a court has been told.
Mark McGrorty, 38, and Brian Richardson, 27, yesterday admitted selling jewellery taken in a raid on a £2million country home in Fife.
They were snared after the then owners of Lochiehead House, Auchtermuchty, went looking for their family heirlooms.
McGrorty was handed a nine-month jail term while Richardson will be sentenced on Friday after the case against him was continued for him to appear in person.
The jewellery was taken from a safe at Lochiehead House between July 25 and 28, 2014. In December that year, an Edin- burgh jeweller contacted police because he believed some jewellery he had bought could have been stolen.
It emerged Richardson had walked into the Joseph Bonnar Jeweller’s store in Thistle Street and sold a pair of opal earrings, a necklace and two aquamarine earrings for a total of £1,400.
The bungling crook did so in full view of CCTV – and even provided his own full name and address to the shop’s proprietor.
Police informed the jewellery owners, who decided to visit other shops to see if they could find any more stolen goods.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court that they went to James Ness & Sons i n the capital’s Queensferry Street. ‘They told staff about the break-in and described the items and staff i mmediately went quiet,’ she said. ‘The proprietor then entered wearing one of the rings that was missing.
‘He denied having any of the stolen goods, but the owners saw a pair of earrings in a cabinet they believed were theirs. Police were able to obtain the items. On August 27, 2 0 1 4 , accused McGrorty had attended and was paid £4,000 via bank transfer for a yellow diamond ring.
‘In total, the items taken were valued at as much as £70,000 for insurance purposes.
‘There is a high value of jewellery still outstanding as a result of this.’
The Crown called on the accused to disclose where the rest of the jewellery is, or reveal who was responsible for the break-in. The court heard two other men, both serving lengthy sentences for robberies committed in January last year, had been incriminated in the crime.
McGrorty, of Ballingry, Fife, pleaded guilty to a charge of resetting a quantity of jewellery that had been dishonestly appropriated by theft. Richardson, 27, of Crosshill, Fife, admitted resetting jewellery at two shops.