Two masked men from Lewisham have been jailed for raiding a mobile phone shop in Woking and making off with handsets worth more than £13,000.
The robbery took place in May, when the pair forced a shop worker to open a secure cage before fleeing with thousands of pounds worth of mobile phones.
Guilty pleas at Guildford Crown Court
Joziah Carey-Nichols and Ousman Faal, both aged 22 and from Lewisham, pleaded guilty to the robbery. They were sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Friday, September 25.
Faal was sentenced to three years in prison, while Carey-Nichols was given a sentence of two and a half years. The sentences were handed down less than five months after the raid.
With guilty pleas entered and sentences handed down, the prosecution of the pair has now concluded.
Masked raid at the Peacock Centre
The pair entered the shop in the Peacock Centre shortly after 11am on May 3 this year wearing masks. They forcibly grabbed a member of staff and demanded that she open a locked cage at the rear of the shop, where expensive handsets were stored.
The men put the handsets into a bag before fleeing the scene.
Tracked to London by CCTV and phone data
Officers carried out enquiries including checks of CCTV, automatic number plate recognition records and phone data. The investigation identified the pair and traced them to London.
Detectives pursued the pair into the capital, and officers later arrested both men at their homes on suspicion of robbery and false imprisonment.
“No one deserves to go into work and be threatened”
PC Luke Lightburn, from the Proactive Investigation Team, said no one should have to face threats and intimidation at work. “No one deserves to go into work and be threatened and intimidated and I can only imagine how frightening this was for the shop staff,” he said.
“Our team worked tirelessly to piece together all the evidence, pursue these criminals into London and bring the consequences of their offences right back to their own front doors.”
The case is the latest Lewisham-linked prosecution to end in prison time, after two Beckenham brothers were jailed over a honeytrap kidnap plot outside a Nando’s in the borough. It also follows other robbery cases across the capital, including a Mottingham e-bike robbery in which a school pupil was targeted. London courts have handed down a string of custodial sentences in recent weeks, including to a former Met officer jailed over a crash-for-cash insurance fraud.
