A Post office worker accused of being the inside m

A Post office worker accused of being the inside man
for a team of highly sophisticated robbers has been cleared
in mid-trial.

Gabriel Callanan, 26, of Watermint Quay, Stamford Hill,
Stoke Newington, was found not guilty of conspiracy
to rob on a judge’s direction at Southwark Crown Court.

The move followed a defence argument that there was
no evidence against Callanan.

Mr David Nathan, defending, made the submission at the
end of the prosecution’s case.

Judge Watts agreed, and directing the jury to find
Callanan not guilty said there was insufficient evidence
for a jury, properly directed, to convict.

Callanan had been described by prosecuting counsel Michael
Stuart-Moore as ‘a Judas’ who had betrayed his Post Office
colleagues.

The crown had claimed Callanan, employed at the Post Office’s
main depot in Giltspur Street, City, had become an inside man
for the gang of robbers late on in the alleged conspiracy.

The court heard of a team of robbers using high tech
bugging devices and psychological terror in their two year
plot against Post Office security van crews.

The trial continues against four men who deny conspiring
with one another and others unknown to rob Post Office employees
between December 1989 and November 14 1991.

They are pub manager Terrence Agombar, 28, of Gainsborough
Square, Bexleyheath; Mark Cummings, 26, a breakdown driver of
Brayford Square, Stepney, E1; jobless Gary Hutchins, 27, of
Ellesworth Street, Bethnal Green, E.

London; and John
Henry, 25, unemployed, of The Broadway, Bexleyheath.

Agombar and Cummings further deny robbing a post office
crewman of pnds stlng 112,027 on November 13, 1991.

Henry also denies handling pnds stlng 22,000 stolen
cash.

Agombar and Cummings deny a similar charge involving
pnds stlng 45,801.

The gang carried out raids in Whitechapel, Chingford,
Kent and in the City of London, it was claimed.

ENDS