Three men who allegedly plotted to murder a career criminal had stolen Ming dynasty antiques worth nearly £3 million from a Swiss museum shortly beforehand, a court has heard.
Paul Allen, a 41-year-old former cage fighter, was paralysed after being shot in the neck at his home in Woodford Green, east London, on July 11 2019.
Allen had moved to the area after serving time for a £54 million Securitas raid in Kent, Britain’s largest cash robbery.
Louis Ahearne, 36, Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, are accused of plotting to murder Allen, alongside others unknown.
On Monday, jurors at the Old Bailey were presented with facts regarding the defendants' “previous criminality”.
They heard of a burglary at the Museum of Far Eastern Arts in Geneva on June 1 2019, a month before the shooting.
During the burglary, three pieces of Ming-era porcelain, insured for US$3.58 million (£2.78m), were stolen. The items included a 15th-century bottle with a pomegranate decoration, a “chicken cup” wine cup, and a 14th-century An Huan phoenix design bowl.
According to the facts read out by the prosecution, Kelly and Louis Ahearne had flown from London to Geneva the day before the raid.
That afternoon, Louis Ahearn carried out reconnaissance at the museum and made a video of Room 3 – referred to as the Ming Porcelain room – on his phone.
The next day, Stewart Ahearne joined the other two defendants and hired a Renault at the airport, jurors were told.
They bought tools and clothes before carrying out the burglary at 11.21pm.
Jurors heard they arrived at the museum in the Renault equipped with masks, gloves, two forehead lamps, an angle-grinder, crowbar and sledgehammer.
They smashed two lower panels on the museum’s main door to make a hole, through which they entered.
Police later identified DNA around the hole as belonging to Stewart Ahearne, the court was told.
The defendants headed to Room 3, forced open a display case using the sledgehammer and crowbar and seized the three Ming dynasty antiques.
Afterwards, attempts were made to dispose of the stolen goods, jurors were told.
The defendants flew to Hong Kong on June 14 2019, where they attempted to sell the phoenix bowl at an auction house.
On October 16 2020, Stewart Ahearne was arrested with another man at a London hotel as they tried to sell the Ming vase 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.
Previously, jurors have heard how two of the defendants were involved in another burglary in Kent the day before Allen was shot.
A Renault Captur was hired by Stewart Ahearne from a dealership in Dartford and used by the other two defendants in a burglary on a gated community in Kent, the court has heard.
The prosecution has alleged the background to the shooting was that Allen was a “sophisticated” career criminal.
He was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court 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 has heard.
By 2019, Mr Allen had been released from prison and moved from south London to a large detached property in Woodford, north-east London, where he lived with his partner and young children.
The defendants had allegedly travelled from their home turf in the Woolwich area of south-east London, through the Blackwall Tunnel to the victim’s new home in Malvern Drive as part of the planning and execution of the conspiracy to murder him.
Louis Ahearne, from Greenwich, south-east London, and Stewart Ahearne and Kelly, both of no fixed address, have denied conspiring to murder Mr Allen between June 26 and July 12 2019.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
