Book Keeper Hatched £300K Raid On Ex Employer

Turkan & Tuncel Ibrahim

A disgruntled book keeper masterminded a £300,000 jewellery raid on his ex-employers' large detached home by hiring thugs to terrorise the couple in the middle of the night, a jury heard yesterday.

Zahid Sait, 42, of Michigan Close, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire was sacked from the catering company run by the victims after they suspected him of stealing £20,000 nearly a decade previously.

Croydon Crown Court heard he plotted with three men, including 24 year-old Reece Williams, of Philip House, Denham Road, South Barnet, who drove the two accomplices who entered the house on June 9, last year.

Sait and Williams have both pleaded not guilty to conspiring to rob Mr. Tuncel Ibrahim, 69 and 67 years-old Mrs Turkan Ibrahim.

Their two co-defendants, Junior Millar, 36, and Kyio Scarlett-Hudson, 20, who have admitted their role, will be sentenced at the conclusion of the trial.

Prosecutor Mr. Gino Connor told the jury Sait told police a "pack of lies" when arrested at an Edmonton funeral attended by Mr. Ibrahim
on October 14.

He denied knowing the robbers, but now claims he was "terrified for his life" and fed the information to the gang under duress.

A gambling addiction left him in debt to one of the robbers and he says he reluctantly gave the couple's home address, fearing he would be harmed.

Williams says he was hired for £300 to drive to the couple's home in Chislehurst Road, Petts Wood, Orpington so his two co-defendants could do nothing more than collect a debt.

It was shortly before 5am when the husband was attacked at his front door, repeatedly punched in the face and tied up.

His wife was bound with her own dressing gown belt and told: "Shut up or I will kill you, I'll kill your husband," by the larger of the two robbers.

"They threatened to rape her if the husband did not co-operate," explained Mr. Connor. 

A scarf was also tied around her neck and her husband sustained bruising and a dislocated shoulder during their ordeal.

After the robbers left Mrs Ibrahim managed to free herself and used a pair of scissors to cut her husband free.

She called the police and the couple were taken to hospital to be treated for number of injuries and shock.

Expensive jewellery, plus £4,000 cash and €650 were taken, and the gang fled to an address in Enfield, where Sait was staying with a friend.

That friend later told police he saw Sait chatting with two black men in the house's conservatory early on June 9 and he had a pile of jewellery and cash by his feet.

Police discovered Sait's cousin is married to the couple's son and he was employed for five years as a book keeper at their Tottenham business until his sacking in 2005 after the theft allegation.

Trial continues…………