‘Sophisticated’ criminal convicted over £54m Securitas...

Cagefighter Paul Allen has been left paralysed after being shot in the throat. A career criminal who was convicted for his role in the UK’s largest armed robbery was shot twice in his kitchen as part of a conspiracy to murder him, a court has heard. Cagefighter Paul Allen has been left paralysed after gunmen fired six bullets into his home shortly after 11pm on 11 July 2019, with two hitting him in the throat.

Image Credit: The Independent [Three men have denied conspiracy to murder and are on trial at the Old Bailey (Nick Ansell/PA)]

At the time, he had been living in a detached house in Woodford, east London, after being released from prison for his role in the £53m cash heist at a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent in 2006. Stewart Ahearne, 45, and Daniel Kelly, 45, alongside Louis Ahearne, 36, have denied conspiracy to murder, and are currently on trial at the Old Bailey. Opening the case, prosecutor Michael Shaw KC said: “The background to this is that Paul Allen is a career criminal and a very sophisticated criminal at that.

“He was convicted a number of years ago at Woolwich Crown Court for his part in the UK’s biggest armed robbery. £54m in cash was stolen, much of what is still outstanding.”. Jurors heard that he was shot with a 9mm Glock handgun after weeks of “reconnaissance” which had seen the alleged gunmen travel from south-east London with unregistered phones and hired vehicles to locate the property where Allen lived with his partner and children.

“The intention of the men who planned and carried out the shooting of Paul Allen on 11th July was to kill him, you’ll have no doubt about that,” Mr Shaw KC said. As part of their planning in the days before the attack, Louis and Stewart Ahearne and Daniel Kelly are said to have been part of a number of individuals who had travelled from the Woolwich area to plot the murder. “They made a number of mistakes,” the prosecutor said. “As you can see, the police attended. They attended with some resources. They sent senior crime investigators out.

“They took swabs, samples, they didn’t take the police long to work out where the gunman was standing because they found the spent shellcases by the summer house.”. Suspecting that the gunmen had attempted to climb over a fence panel, swabs were taken with DNA results returning for Kelly and Louis Ahearne. “The reason they found Daniel Kelly’s DNA and Louis Ahearne’s DNA was because they had been at that fence panel at 11.09pm on 11th of July armed with a Glock pistol,” he said.