News / North East & Tayside

Armed robber raided Gleneagles Hotel then fled to Brazil

An armed robber who took part in a raid at a luxury hotel has been jailed for 11 years.

STV News

10th Jan 2020

An armed robber who took part in a raid at a luxury hotel has been jailed after being brought back from South America to face justice.

Dean Jones was part of a three-man gang who staged the smash and grab heist at a jeweller’s boutique at the five-star Gleneagles Hotel, at Auchterarder, in Perthshire.

He was jailed for 11 years and four months at the High Court in Edinburgh on Friday.

The 39-year-old escaped with 50 Rolex watches along his step-brother Liam Richardson and Richard Fleming in June 2017.

None of the watches, worth a total of £516,750, have been recovered.

Fleming, then 42, was jailed for 15 years with a further three years supervision in 2018 and 30-year-old Richardson was also sentenced to 11 years and four months.

The weekend before Fleming’s trial, police discovered that the third man, Jones, had boarded a flight from Turkey bound for Brazil.

Fleming and Richardson earlier jailed over the robbery. <strong>Police Scotland</strong>”/></div><figcaption aria-hidden=true>Fleming and Richardson earlier jailed over the robbery. <strong>Police Scotland</strong> <cite class=hidden></cite></figcaption></figure><p>The Brazilian authorities were contacted and he was detained as he disembarked from a plane at Sao Paulo airport on August 17, 2018.</p><p>He was subsequently extradited back to the UK last year.</p><p>Days after the raid he had flown from London to Malaga and it is believed he then moved on to Morocco before later jetting to South America.</p><p>In court on Friday he admitted taking part in the robbery with others with faces masked and in possession of hammers, a machete and pistol.</p><p>The men put employees Stephen McIvor and Daniel Horne in a state of fear and alarm for their safety by repeatedly striking and smashing display cabinets at the Mappin and Webb shop.</p><p>A judge told him: “The robbery was an act of serious, premeditated criminality. It involved significant advance planning with a visit to the hotel some weeks before.”</p><p>Lady Carmichael told Jones: “Criminality of this nature will not be tolerated.”</p><p>She said: “You removed yourself from the country and as a matter of fact avoided, for a significant period, facing the course of justice for the robbery and there was the necessity for extradition proceedings.” </p><p>Jones and Richardson travelled up to Glasgow two days before the robbery from their home city of London in an Audi that was to be used in the raid.</p><p>Fleming, a Glaswegian who had settled in London, travelled up by train.</p><p>On the day of the raid they travelled from Glasgow in convoy with the Audi and a Range Rover Evoque.</p><p>They drove to the main entrance of the hotel in the Audi A4 and left the vehicle armed with weapons and shouting.</p><p>Jones and Richardson were each carrying weighted hammers that could smash through security glass and Fleming was armed with the gun and machete.</p><p>Advocate depute Alex Prentice QC said: “All three men were dressed identically in black, including their gloves. They further concealed their identities with masks covering their faces.”</p><p>The entire raid took place in two minutes before they left in the Audi which was abandoned and they swapped to the Ranger Rover for their getaway.</p><p>The Range Rover was later found burnt out at a graveyard in the east end of Glasgow.</p><p>The robbery sparked a massive police operation and DNA linking Jones to it was discovered on a hammer found in the Audi and in the vehicle itself.</p><p>Fleming was caught on camera in Glasgow Central train station later on the day of the robbery showing off a watch before he and his accomplices boarded a train for London Euston.</p><p>The court previously heard that staff at the hotel feared the gang were carrying out “a terrorist attack”.</p><div class=

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