Brave hairdresser fights off moped raiders with shop sign
A salon worker fought off a gang of moped riders with a shop sign as they tried to break into a jewellery shop with their bikes and sledgehammers.
Calvin Brown, 19, was jailed for eight years after he and three others pulled up at Coleby’s jewellery shop in Basildon, Essex, and began ramming into the windows with their vehicles.
They used sledgehammers to try and break the glass front until the owner of a neighbouring hairdressers attempted to distract them by throwing a shop sign at the men.
However, this did little to disturb them from the attack on the jewellers and one of the mopeds sped into the shop.
Remarkable footage then shows a van driving onto the pavement to trap two of the vehicles and preventing them from harming anyone else.
All four suspects then got on the remaining moped and fled the scene.
Police traced them to the area of The Swallows, where all the motorcycle clothing and the bike itself had been discarded.
Brown was arrested later the same day. He had been on bail at the time for other offences, with conditions that he wear an electronic tag, not leave his address from 7pm until 7am, and not enter the area within the M25 border.
The electric tag’s monitoring system showed he had been out of his home between 10.33am and 11.45am on the day of the incident.
Investigating officer PC Johnda Hughes from Basildon LPT said: “This was a brazen attempt at stealing from a jewellery shop in broad daylight, when the shops were at their busiest and we received more than 20 calls to 999 at the time.
“Brown showed no regard for the danger his reckless actions posed to the public and was clearly prepared to use violence.
“Thankfully no-one was hurt and nothing was stolen.”
The judge recommended that the salon worker and van driver each receive a High Sheriff Award.
Moped crime hit a peak in July 2017, where 2,653 offences were recorded in just one month, but a joint police operation saw it fall 56% in August 2018.
