Sarah Slater prosecuted a 2-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court in which Gary Newman and Mark Earl were convicted unanimously on the 26th September 2024 of involvement in an armed robbery at Bonds Worldwide, near to Birmingham airport.
They were members of a 4 man team who targeted the warehouse to steal over £150,000 worth of IT equipment. They robbed an employee at knife point and tied him up in an upstairs office. They were then able to load pallets of IT equipment into a van also owned by Bonds. Two members of the team pleaded guilty earlier but Newman and Earl disputed that they were involved. There was CCTV though obtained which supported that all four co-Defendants had been together only 35 minutes before the robbery. The CCTV confirmed what they were all wearing and was compared to footage from the robbery. There were similarities in the clothing worn and along with phone evidence, use of a vehicle linked to Newman and other CCTV – the Prosecution were able establish that both Newman and Earl were involved.
After the robbery they travelled back to the Chelmsley Wood area of Birmingham in the stolen van and went straight to the address of Patrick Cooke. The stolen goods were unloaded into his address. As the van though had a GPS tracker the police were able to attend very quickly and disrupt the team and recover some of the stolen property. Patrick Cooke was also convicted by the jury of Handling Stolen Goods.
All 5 co-defendants will be sentenced later this year.
