Three men have been jailed for a total of over 100 years for 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 that the attackers “very nearly succeeded”, before convicting brothers Louis Ahearne, 36, and Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, of plotting to murder Allen with others unknown.
Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC sentenced Kelly, who did not appear at court, to 36 years in prison with an extended licence period of five years while she jailed Louis Ahearne for 33 years and Stewart Ahearne for 30 years.
The judge said on Friday: “I have no doubt that this agreement to murder Paul Allen involved other people apart from the three of you and that you three were motivated by a promise of financial gain.
“The culpability of each one of you is very high.
“The harm caused to the victim was very serious – indeed short of killing him it could hardly be more serious. He is currently paralysed and relies on others for every single need.”
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, Jade Bovington, and two young children in a luxury property owned by comedian Russell Kane.
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 near the O2 Arena 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.
After the guilty verdicts 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.”
