Three men guilty of plotting to murder bank robber involved in £54,000,000 raid

Three men have been found guilty of plotting to kill a former cage fighter convicted of Britain’s largest cash robbery.

Paul Allen, then 41, was paralysed for life after shots were fired at his large detached rented home in Woodford Green, north-east London, in 2019.

A jury at the Old Bailey was told the intention was to kill him, and the attackers ‘very nearly succeeded’.

Now, Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, were found guilty of plotting to murder Allen.

During the trial, prosecutors said the shooting was likely tied to Allen’s ‘sophisticated’ career as a criminal.

He was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court in 2009 for his part in Britain’s biggest armed robbery, at Securitas in Kent, in which £54 million in cash was stolen, much of which has never been recovered, the court heard.

By 2019, Allen had been released from prison and moved from south London to a large detached property in Woodford, north-east London, where he lived with his partner and young children.

The court heard how the defendants had planned the shooting carefully, carried out surveillance and fitted a tracker device to Allen’s car.

The defendants travelled from their neighbourhood to Allen’s new home in Malvern Drive in a hired car. While Stewart Ahearne waited in the car, Kelly and Louis Ahearne snuck into a garden overlooking Mr Allen’s back garden.

Around 11.09 pm, six shots were fired through the back doors and windows, striking Mr Allen in the neck as he stood in the kitchen.

The men fled back to the waiting car, which drove away, leaving their victim fighting for his life. During the police investigation, DNA was recovered from the garden fence and matched Kelly and Louis Ahearne.

Bullet casings in the garden were matched to a Glock handgun that was compatible with a laser sight recovered from Kelly’s address.

The court also heard that the three men snatched Ming dynasty antiques worth more than £2.78 million from a Swiss museum shortly before the murder plot.

Jurors heard agreed facts about the defendants’ ‘previous criminality’ – a burglary at the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva on June 1, 2019, a month before Allen was shot.

The defendants went to Hong Kong after that heist and attempted to sell the Phoenix Bowl at an auction house.

On October 16, 2020, Stewart Ahearne was arrested with another man at a London hotel as they tried to sell the Ming vase to an undercover police officer.

A later search of a property revealed a passport in the name of Stewart Ahearne and a book on Ming dynasty antiques, the court was told.

The brothers were extradited from Switzerland to face trial over the shooting. Jurors were also told how two of the defendants were also involved in another burglary in Sevenoaks in Kent, the day before Allen was shot.

The Renault Captur hired by Stewart Ahearne from a dealership in Dartford, Kent, was used by the other two defendants in a burglary on a gated community in the county, the court was told.

Louis Ahearne, from Greenwich, south-east London, and Stewart Ahearne and Kelly, both of no fixed address, had denied the charge against them.

They were remanded into custody to be sentenced by Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC at the Old Bailey on April 25.

Detective Matt Webb said: ‘This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different. This was horrific criminality. The court heard how this was a clear and defined attempt to take a man’s life with those responsible making significant efforts to ensure this was successful.

‘Daniel Kelly, Louis and Stewart Ahearne will now undoubtedly face significant custodial sentences and I hope this time at His Majesty’s pleasure provides them the opportunity to reflect on their criminality and the impact it has on society.’

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