A gang including pensioners and serious criminals planned to carry out the biggest burglary in English legal history when they broke into a Hatton Garden security vault and stole £14m worth of jewels, gold and cash, a court has heard.

The claim was made by the prosecutor on the opening day of the trial of four men for the burglary in London’s diamond district over Easter weekend, during which the gang bored a hole through a thick concrete wall to access safe deposit boxes.



Philip Evans told the jury at Woolwich crown court on Monday that 76-year-old Brian Reader, the oldest of the four ringleaders and who has already pleaded guilty, was known as “the master”. When his home was raided, police found “a book on the diamond underworld, a diamond tester, a diamond gauge, diamond magazines”.



Three men are charged with conspiracy to burgle: William Lincoln, 60, of Bethnal Green, east London; John Harbinson, 42, of Benfleet, Essex; and Carl Wood, 58, of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.

They and Hugh Doyle, 48, of Enfield, north London, are also charged with conspiracy to conceal, convert or transfer criminal property. And Doyle is charged with actually concealing, converting or transferring criminal property.

They deny all the charges.

Four people have already pleaded guilty to the burglary, with three pensioners among them, the jury heard.



John Collins, 74, of Islington, north London; Daniel Jones, 58, of Enfield, north London; Terry Perkins, 67, also of Enfield; and Reader, of Dartford, Kent, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle with intent to steal jewellery.

L to R: John Collins, Daniel Jones, Terry Perkins and Brian Reader. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

The crown says Reader, Collins, Jones and Perkins were the ringleaders.

“These four ringleaders and organisers of this conspiracy, although senior in years, brought with them a great deal of experience in planning and executing sophisticated and serious acquisitive crime not dissimilar to this,” Evans said.



“This offence was to be the largest burglary in English legal history. Two of these men had also been involved in some of the biggest acquisitive crime of the last century, and the other two had for many years in their earlier lives been involved in serious theft.”



Nearly £9m of the stolen valuables had not been recovered, the court was told. Evans said the best estimate was that the gang stole a total of £14m in valuables, having opened 73 safety deposit boxes, 29 of which were empty. The vault held a total of 996 boxes, of which more than 500 contained valuables.

The prosecutor said police had identified 40 people whose valuables were stolen and that the safe deposit boxes were predominantly used by local jewellery businesses as their “company safe”.

Evans said lower value goods had been recovered but many loose precious stones were still missing, as were “gold, platinum and other precious metal bars, ingots and coins”.

Collins was involved in the planning, attending meetings before and after the burglary, Evans said. The 74-year-old scouted Hatton Garden before the burglary, was the lookout during the heist, and drove a van to and from the scene. When police raided his Islington home, they found “items including a large amount of cash, wristwatches, coins, jewellery and a money counter”, he said.

Jones was “at the heart of the extensive planning” and had regular meetings on Friday nights at places including the Castle pub in Islington, the jury heard.

He buried some of the stolen goods in a cemetery in Edmonton, while items including face masks, a drill and cash were found at his property.



Evans said that, after entering the building housing the vault, the gang hit a snag. “Jones was at the burglary throughout and was instrumental in gaining access to the vault, and after the first night failure, he, with Collins, obtained further equipment to do so.”

Perkins visited Hatton Garden before the burglary and was present throughout the raid, Evans said. A police raid of his home found “jewellery, cash, blue overalls, five pairs of white fabric gloves and a quantity of euros”.

Evans said of Reader: “He was involved in the planning, present at the meetings before and after the burglary. He was present in the building at Hatton Garden on the first night of the burglary but not the second. He does not appear to have owned his own mobile phone and may have used his son Paul Reader’s mobile to be in contact on occasions with his co-conspirators.”

When his property was searched, police seized a book on the diamond underworld, a diamond tester, a diamond gauge, diamond magazines, and a distinctive scarf which he can be seen wearing on CCTV footage from Hatton Garden on 2 and 3 April, Evans said.



Evans told the jury why he had outlined the scale of the conspiracy: “This is important for you to understand because it demonstrates that men with that level of experience, engaged in a crime of this complexity and severity, would only have involved those who could be fully trusted.”



Evans told the court the planning for the heist began in 2012.

“By analysing the contents of the defendants’ computers it has been possible to say that as long ago as August 2012, one of the people involved was making searches on the internet for drills, and by May 2014 those searches had escalated to more meaningful searches for the specific drill which was used over the Easter weekend 2015 to drill through the vault wall. Also, by May 2014 on the computer there were YouTube clips found containing demonstrations of how to use it.”

Police secretly recorded conversations which took place in two of the cars used by the conspirators, Collins’ Mercedes and and Perkins’ Citroen Saxo, the jury heard.

They also accessed billing data for the conspirators and alleged conspirators’ phones, showing the date and time of incoming and outgoing calls, as well as geographical data about where the calls were made.

The handsets themselves showed contact numbers and the content of texts, the court heard.

Police used automatic number plate recognition to track the vehicle movements of the conspirators and alleged conspirators through London and south-east England, jurors were told.

The trial continues.