Three guilty of plot to murder ?54m Securitas robber Paul Allen

Three men have been found guilty of plotting to kill a former cagefighter 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”.

On Monday, Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, were found guilty of plotting to murder Allen with others unknown.

Reacting to the verdicts in the dock, Stewart Ahearne shouted to the jury: “You are only human. That’s all I have to say about that.”

During the trial, prosecutors alleged the background to the shooting was that Allen was a “sophisticated” career 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 defendants?travelled from their neighbourhood in the Woolwich area of south-east London, through the Blackwall Tunnel, to the victim’s new home in Malvern Drive, as part of the planning and execution of the conspiracy to murder him.

The court also heard that the three men snatched Ming dynasty antiques worth more than 3.5 million US dollars (?2.78 million) from a Swiss museum shortly before the murder plot.

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

Three pieces of Ming-era porcelain were taken from the museum, which had a combined insurance value of 3,580,000 US dollars (?2,760,000).

The items were an early 15th century bottle with a secret pomegranate decoration; a small wine cup known as the “chicken cup”; and a 14th century An Huan phoenix design bowl.

The defendants flew to Hong Kong on June 14 2019, where they 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.

Jurors were also told how two of the defendants were involved in another burglary in Kent, the day before Allen was shot.

A Renault Captur was hired by Stewart Ahearne from a dealership in Dartford, Kent, and 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.

The were remanded into custody to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on a date to be fixed.