The plot to kill former cage fighter Britain's biggest-ever cash heist

Paul Allen, then 41, was paralysed for life after shots were fired at his large detached rented home

Three men have been locked up for conspiring to murder a former cage fighter, who was convicted of Britain's biggest cash heist.

Paul Allen, then 41, was left paralysed for life after gunfire rang out at his spacious detached rented property in Woodford Green, north-east London, in 2019.

At the Old Bailey, jurors heard that the aim was to kill Allen, and his would-be assassins "very nearly succeeded" in doing so. Brothers Louis Ahearne, 36, Stewart Ahearne, 46, along with Daniel Kelly, also 46, were convicted of plotting to murder Allen with others unknown.

In her ruling on Friday (April 25), 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 . She also 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, prosecutors alleged the background to the shooting was that Allen was a "sophisticated" career criminal.

He 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.

By 2019, 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 court heard how the defendants had planned the shooting carefully, carried out surveillance and fitted a tracker device to the victim's car to track his movements.

At around 11.09pm on July 11, 2019, six shots were fired through the back doors and windows, striking Mr Allen in the neck as he stood in the kitchen.

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 handgun that was compatible with a laser sight recovered from Kelly's address.

The court also heard that the three men snatched Ming dynasty antiques worth more than $3.5 million from a Swiss museum shortly before the murder plot.

Jurors heard agreed facts about the defendants' "previous criminality" relating to a burglary at the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva on June 1, 2019, a month before Allen was shot.

Three pieces of Ming-era porcelain were taken from the museum, which had a combined insurance value of £2,760,000.

The items were an early 15th century bottle with a secret pomegranate decoration, a small wine cup known as the "chicken cup" and a 14th century An Huan phoenix design bowl.

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.

The brothers were extradited from Switzerland to face trial over the shooting.

Louis Ahearne, from Greenwich, south-east London, and Stewart Ahearne and Kelly, both of no fixed address, had denied the charge against them.

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