Lawless London: Brazen thieves try to steal a judge's motorbike from outside crown court
2 December 2022, 20:24
Thieves try to steal judge's motorbike from crown court
A pair of teenagers tried to steal a judge's £15,000 motorbike parked at a court in an "audacious" attempted theft.
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Three people tried to take the BMW R 1250GS Adventure and even challenged a security guard with a machete.
But their getaway was stopped when Snaresbrook Crown Court staff shut the gates on them, forcing them to dump the bike and their own mopeds before climbing the fence and fleeing on foot.
However, police managed to track down two of them from their belongings.
The Met tracked down Deon-Dre Rogers-Barrett, 19, of Enfield, from the moped he ditched during the attempted theft in April 2021.
He was given 21 months' imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and was told to carry out 25 days of rehabilitation activity. He will also wear an electronic tag for a three-month curfew and pay the judge who owned the bike £500 after pleading guilty to robbery.
The other items left behind helped them catch Shay Hollis, 18, also of Enfield, who was given an 18-month supervision order, told to carry out 12 hours of unpaid work and pay £500 in compensation to the judge.
He admitted robbery, criminal damage, threatening a person in a public place with an offensive weapon and affray.
During the raid, Hollis threatened the guard with a machete. The guard ran back into the building as Hollis and Rogers-Barrett started pushing the judge's bike away from the court.
They then dumped it when staff shut the gates on them, causing several thousands of pounds worth of damage to the BMW.
Having dumped their mopeds to escape over the fence, police found one insured to Rogers-Barrett and used forensics to link the items abandoned at the scene to him and Hollis.
Rogers-Barrett called police 90 minutes after the crime to falsely claim he had been robbed at knife point on his own moped, before the Snaresbrook robbery.
Investigators, however, were able to prove this was not true using CCTV. They also found the phone he claimed he had been robbed of was actually at his home.
When he denied knowing Hollis, officers found photos of Hollis on his phone.
Hollis's distinct clothing worn during the robbery was also found at Hollis's home.
Both men were arrested in May 2021 but the third person involved is yet to be identified.
The Met's PC Ian Croxford said: "They were intent on stealing a valuable motorcycle in an attempt that can only be described as brazen and audacious. To ride into the grounds of a Crown Court and try this shows a flagrant disregard for the law.
"That the brave security staff who challenged them were threatened with a machete shows they were not afraid to use violence to get what they wanted.
"This should serve as a warning to anyone concerned in serious criminality that we will investigate and will use every tool at our disposal to bring you to justice."
