Hatton & Berkeley

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Men who burgled Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Building plead guilty.


John Collins, Daniel Jones, Terry Perkins and Brian Reader have pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court today to conspiracy to burgle Hatton Garden Safe Deposit building.

Items believed to be worth more than £10m were taken in the raid at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London's jewellery quarter. More than 70 safety deposit boxes were ransacked in the Easter weekend raid.

Perkins, 67, of Heene Road, Enfield, Collins, 74, of Bletsoe Walk, Islington, Jones, 58, of Park Avenue, Enfield and Reader, 76, of Dartford Road, Dartford, were arrested in May.

The men will be sentenced at a date to be confirmed.

Five other men still face trial for conspiring to commit the burglary. All denied the charges. They will be tried in November.

Over the course of Easter weekend, the thieves broke into the lift shaft, disabled the lift, and abseiled down to the basement. They forced open the shutter doors using an angle grinder and crowbars, whereupon they then cut through the 50cm (20in) reinforced concrete wall to the vault using a powerful industrial drill.

After seizing jewellery and other valuables from 72 safe deposit boxes, they escaped in a waiting van.