Combined 30 years for teens who used sledgehammers and stolen scooters to steal £335,000 of watches from top hotels
A gang of Islington teenagers who carried out “smash and grab robberies” on two of London’s most prestigious hotels have been sentenced to almost 30 years in prison.
Riding scooters and carrying sledgehammers, the group made off with a haul of about £335,000 worth of watches from The Dorchester in Mayfair – which they raided twice in the space of a month – and the Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge between June and July last year.
Members of the gang were also found guilty of a number of scooter thefts and an attempted robbery at Rankings Jewellers in Bethnal Green Road less than two weeks after the second Dorchester raid.
Skye Roberts, 19, of Cubbit Street, King’s Cross and Fred Gosling, 18, of Portpool Lane, Clerkenwell, were both found guilty of conspiracy to commit robbery between June 9 and July 12 2014 at Kingston Crown Court on Thursday last week.
Roberts was given a six-year prison sentence, while Gosling, who along with Herman Yemane, 18, of Highbury New Park, and a 17-year-old from King’s Cross was also found guilty of the attempted robbery at Rankings in July, was given 10 years at the same court on Friday.
Yemane and his 17-year-old accomplice had also pleaded guilty to an attempted theft at L’Atelier Parmigiani in Mayfair on July 23 alongside Adel Soufie, 18, of Hazelville Road. Yemane was given six years, Soufie was given a three year sentence and the 17-year-old was jailed for four and a half years.
The hotel robberies saw members of the gang smash through windows and cabinets grabbing watches, one of which is worth £27,700 and is yet to be accounted for.
A pedestrian was knocked unconscious when she was hit by one of the riders fleeing the first Dorchester raid on June 10.
Detective Constable Martin Lappin, from the Met’s Flying Squad, said: “I am pleased with the convictions as they highlight that armed robberies are not victimless crimes. Innocent people were injured.”
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