A CORK-BORN man has been jailed for more than 20 years for his role in a Heathrow airport robbery in 2004. It was the first non-jury trial in a major criminal case in 400 years of English and Welsh legal history.
John Twomey, a 62-year-old career criminal, was identified as the ringleader of the six-strong gang who carried out the warehouse raid, and got away with £1.75 million, even though they had been under surveillance by undercover detectives.
The decision to push for a non-jury trial was taken after three previous trials collapsed, the last one in November, because of allegations of jury tampering.
Twomey, born in Cork in 1948, was brought by his mother to live in Paddington when he was five. He had claimed he was too ill with a heart condition to have been involved in the crime.
Three others were also jailed. Peter Blake (57) was sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 10 years and nine months. Barry Hibberd (43) was given a 17-year sentence, and Glenn Cameron (50) was jailed for 15 years. Twomey claimed he had been “fitted up” by police because he had given evidence against corrupt London police in the 1980s.
An informer in the gang had told police about the plan to raid the Menzies World Cargo depot at Heathrow in February 2004. The gang was put under surveillance for months but detectives failed to stop the raid taking place – during which the gang shot at and beat up a security guard – and only moved in the next day to arrest them.
The decision to allow the trial to go ahead without a jury was criticised by human rights lawyers.
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