DEWl CROOKED COMPANY BOSS FREE IN WEEKS

A crooked company boss who supplied a getaway car for a ruthless gang of armed robbers will be free within weeks because he has been on ‘tagged curfew’ for more than 200 days.

Mark Dew, 38, hired out a black Ford Fiesta out to Craig Mason, 32, a friend of glamour model Danielle Lloyd before it was used in a raid on Nationwide building society in Holt, Norfolk.

Dew later deleted computer records of the transaction after police investigating the robbery linked him to the vehicle and searched his Cars 4 Rent firm, in Ilford, Essex.

He also tried to destroy the computer server on which the information was stored but was foiled following a tip-off from an employee at the firm.

Police discovered the server hidden in the back of a van parked close to the business.

Jailing Dew for 10 months Judge Wendy Joseph told him: ‘You deliberately concealed from the police computer records and manual records and you destroyed them.

‘You systematically prevaricated and you lied.

‘By that stage you must have realised that the material you were hiding was being sought by police because it was capable of leading to the perpetrators of serious offences.’

The businessman was given a 10 month sentence, but told he is likely to be free within weeks because of the length of time he had been on electronically tagged curfew.

He has already spent 218 days of tagged curfew, each of which will be counted as a half-day off the five months of the sentence he is expected to serve before being released on licence.

Prosecutor Michael Shaw said the car was used by Mason – a powerboat racing enthusiast who called Danielle Lloyd as an alibi witness – for the raid in Holt on January 29, 2008.

Mason acted as a getaway driver while gang boss Danny Speed, Lee Watson and Mark Richards smashed their way into the building as two G4S workers were refilling an ATM and made off with £81,000.

The Fiesta had been used as a secondary getaway car after the first vehicle was dumped just yards from the scene of the robbery.

It was linked to the raid after automatic number plate recognition cameras snapped the car making several trips to Holt in convoy with a series of other vehicles used.

Mr Shaw said police checks found the car had been hired by Mason from Dew’s firm Cars 4 Rent.

He said: ‘Officers contacted the company but were given the run around.

‘They attended the premises and spoke to Mr Dew who said he could not help them.

‘They returned the next day with a warrant and searched the premises and recovered the computer systems, which they thought they had taken all of but they had missed the main server.’

Mr Shaw said that night Dew rang the company’s IT specialist to ask about how he could wipe the server.

‘So concerned was the employee that he rang the police himself [ the next day] and told them they had missed the main server and that Mr Dew had had this conversation with him,’ he said.

‘Officers returned the next day to search for the server.

‘It was found in the back of a locked van down the road and we say he was going to destroy it.’

Mr Shaw said that a check of the server revealed that the relevant documents had been deleted.

He continued to say that in the wake of the police visits to his business several phone calls were made between Mason and Dew.

‘There are a series of phone calls which we have identified where Mr Dew is ringing Craig Mason after the police have made their enquiries.’

He added: ‘I accept that Mr Dew did not know that the giving of the vehicle to Craig Mason was to commit the armed robbery but we say he did know, shortly thereafter, when the Norfolk Constabulary alerted him to the nature and the gravity of their investigation [that it had been involved in a serious matter].’

Dew, of 47 Hilldene Avenue, Romford, Essex, admitted perverting the course of justice.

The judge said she accepted that Dew’s actions were ‘wholly out of character’ and referred to a testimonial describing him as a ‘reliable and trustworthy businessman’.

He had lost his business as a result of the police investigation, and had gone bankrupt, losing his family home, she noted.

But Judge Joseph said: ‘The gravity of these offences cannot be overlooked.

‘I do not doubt for a moment you knew you were concealing evidence of very serious wrong-doing.

‘The simple fact is, you could have gone to see police, or when they came to see you, you could have let them have the records.’

Speed and his gang of cronies were all jailed earlier this year for their various roles in a string of armed robberies across East Anglia.

Mason, of (8) Harrow Drive, Hornchurch, Essex, was jailed for 11 years after being convicted of two counts of conspiracy to rob.

Speed, (35) Eisenhower Drive, Beckton, east London, was convicted of five counts of conspiracy to rob between November 3 2005 and September 28 last year.

Watson, of the same address as Speed, was convicted of three counts of conspiracy to rob and having a firearm with intent and jailed for 16 years.

Richards, of (35) Berwick Road, Rainham, Essex, was jailed for 13 years.
ENDS