Gleneagles raid

BREAKING NEWS: Armed gang members behind £500,000 Rolex raid jailed for 29 years

Two men who carried out a violent robbery at Mappin & Webb’s Gleneagles store have been found guilty at Edinburgh High Court.

Two men who carried out a £500,000 armed jewellery robbery at Mappin & Webb’s Gleneagles store have been jailed for a total of 29 years.

Richard Fleming and Liam Richardson were part of a three-man gang that stole 50 Rolex watches from the boutique located inside the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland.

They had taken 50 out of 51 Rolex watches that were on display at the fine jewellers, which cost a total of £516,750 and have never been recovered.

Fleming, 42, was jailed for 18 years and Richardson, 30, was jailed for 11 years and four months.

A trial at the High Court in Edinburgh heard that staff thought the gang were carrying out a “terrorist attack”.

According to coverage of the trial by the BBC, Fleming personally threatened employees Louis Hutchison, 48, and Euan Wishart, 36, with a gun, a machete and hammers.

A judge said the robbery was “an act of serious premeditated criminality”.

Judge Lady Carmichael said: “Criminal behaviour of this nature will not be tolerated and requires the imposition of a substantial period of imprisonment.”

The court heard that after the two-minute-long raid, the robbers fled the scene in a high-powered Audi sports car, which was dumped close by.

Footage of the men carrying out the raid can be seen in the BBC’s report here.

Detectives were able to place Fleming and Richardson at the scene after analysing “tens of thousands of hours” of CCTV recordings and mobile phone records.

Fleming maintained he was innocent of any wrongdoing and had claimed that at the time of the robbery he was buying drugs in Parkhead, Glasgow.

Richardson, of London, pleaded guilty to armed robbery at the start of his accomplice’s trial in August.

 

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