Three men who burgled a museum in Switzerland have been found guilty of plotting to kill a former cagefighter convicted of Britain’s largest cash robbery.
Paul Allen, now 47, was left paralysed for life after six shots were fired striking his neck, throat and hand as he stood in the kitchen of his large detached rented home in Woodford Green.
A jury at the Old Bailey was told the intention was to kill him in July 2019 and the attackers “very nearly succeeded”.
Prosecutors said the background was that Allen was a “sophisticated” career criminal.
On Monday, Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, were found guilty of conspiracy 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, it emerged Allen 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.
A month before the shooting, the Ahearne brothers and Kelly stole Chinese Ming Dynasty artefacts worth more than $3.5 million (£2.78m) burgled from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva.
Allen had been released from prison and moved from south London to Woodford where he lived with his partner and young children.
The court heard how the defendants had planned the shooting carefully, carried out surveillance and fitted a tracker device to the victim’s car.
Using an iPad, subsequently thrown into the River Thames but later recovered by officers, the device tracked the car’s movements allowing the suspects now knew when and where their target would be.
The defendants travelled from their neighbourhood in the Woolwich area, through the Blackwall Tunnel, to the victim’s new home in Malvern Drive in a car hired two days earlier by Stewart Ahearne.
While Stewart Ahearne waited in the car, Kelly and Louis Ahearne snuck into a garden overlooking Mr Allen’s back garden.
At around 11.09pm, six shots were fired through the back doors and windows, striking Mr Allen in the neck as he stood in the kitchen.
The men fled back to the waiting car, which drove away, leaving their victim fighting for his life.
During the police investigation, DNA was recovered from the garden fence and matched Kelly and Louis Ahearne.
Bullet casings in the garden were matched to a Glock SLP handgun that was compatible with a laser sight recovered from Kelly’s address.
Further CCTV evidence picked up the hire car driven by Stewart Ahearne.
On October 16 2020, Stewart Ahearne was arrested with another man at a London hotel as they tried to sell a 14th century An Huan phoenix design bowl 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.
The brothers were extradited from Switzerland to face trial over the shooting.
Prosecutor Michael Shaw KC said: “This was a meticulously researched and planned assassination attempt by a team of men well versed in the level of criminality to pull it off.”
Jurors were also told how two of the defendants were also involved in another burglary in Sevenoaks in Kent, the day before Allen was shot.
The Renault Captur hired by Stewart Ahearne from a dealership in Dartford, Kent, was used by the other two defendants in a burglary on a gated community in the county, the court was told.
Louis Ahearne, from Greenwich, and Stewart Ahearne and Kelly, both of no fixed address, had denied the charge against them.
They were remanded into custody to be sentenced by Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC at the Old Bailey on April 25.
Detective Superintendent Matt Webb, of the Metropolitan Police, described the three defendants as “hardened organised criminals” who acted together “well-planned and orchestrated manner”, adding: “This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different.
“This was horrific criminality. The court heard how this was a clear and defined attempt to take a man’s life with those responsible making significant efforts to ensure this was successful.
“Daniel Kelly, Louis and Stewart Ahearne will now undoubtedly face significant custodial sentences and I hope this time at His Majesty’s pleasure provides them the opportunity to reflect on their criminality and the impact it has on society.”
