Five balaclava-clad robbers who raided a trendy Bromley boutique days before Christmas, snatching £10,000 worth of designer clothes, admitted their roles in the raid today.
The gang targeted Roma Boutique, Widmore Road, at 11am on December 21, last year and terrified staff and customers, escaping in a van stopped a few minutes later by police.
They are: Liam Riley, 23, from Finchley, North London; Kyle Tamaklo-Jones, 18, and Daryl Edwards, 23, both from Upper Sydenham; Nico Georgiou, 24 from Charlton and Jay-Jean Baptiste, 22, from Upper Norwood, South-East London.
“This is five-handed, mob-handed,” said the Recorder of Croydon Warwick McKinnon. “There is planning, they are wearing balaclavas and force is used to carry out the robbery on more than one person.
“It is obvious they were all in this together,” added the Judge, indicating his sentencing range was three to seven years’ imprisonment.
The court was shown CCTV footage from the shop (pictured) clearly showing the gang intimidating staff and customers and pushing and grabbing anyone who got in their way.
Police recovered all the clothing.
Owner Nick Khatibi, 38, said he had not seen anything like it in the 16 years he has run the boutique. “You just don’t expect something like this to happen here in the middle of the day.
“I already have good security and I used to have an entrance buzzer, but how much more can I spend? It is not an easy time for us.
“I really think that the police need to be more active to stop things like this happening.”
Mr. Khatibi claims the raiders snatched £1,000 from the till, which is denied by the defendants.
Police did not recover any money.
The gang were remanded in custody for sentencing on April 1.
1 comment:
Also the owner tried claim £250,000 on insurance and when the merchandise was sent back to the manufacturers it was fount out all to be counterfit. So with the profit he is making selling fakes as the real deal i'm pretty sure he could afford new security equipment.
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