Art, Ammo and the Ahearnes: A tale of theft and attempted murder

A man shot in his kitchen. A Ming vase in a JD Sports bag. An iPad dumped in the Thames.

This one has it all: a failed assassination, a Geneva museum heist, and three South London men who left a digital trail as messy as their getaway. Paul Allen, once part of Britain’s biggest cash robbery, ends up paralysed. But it’s what the attackers left behind that seals their fate.

Also this week: Hannah’s limping, Rachel’s made a new friend (scandal), and we can’t remember if we’re quoting ourselves or losing our minds.

If you'd like to donate to Hannah's Just Giving for Papyrus, you can do it here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Hannah1747738258903

Sources for this episode include: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5nw5nez7zo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67988454
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgp1g85lj7o
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7656317.stm
https://news.met.police.uk/news/three-guilty-of-conspiracy-to-murder-following-woodford-green-shooting-in-2019-495437
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/R-v-Kelly-Ahearne-and-Ahearne.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c209z8l72dwt?page=2
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/16/two-british-brothers-jailed-over-swiss-museum-heist
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/17/heist-switzerland-theft-baur-geneva-ahearne/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67950947
https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/news/trio-facing-lengthy-jail-terms-after-attempt-to-kill-east-london-rival-left-target-paralysed-for-life/

Lore and Crime
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• 8:38 (Cont.) Art, Ammo and the Ahearnes: A tale of theft and attempted murder

Transcript

Ep 21 - Ahearne Brothers

Hello. Hi. I'm Rachel.

I'm Hannah. And this is Sinister South, your true crime compendium and companion for everything South London. What? I love that.

Okay, fine. I think it's, we can leave that. I like that.

Compendium and companion. Very nice. Love the alliteration.

Thanks, babes. How are you? All right. Yeah.

Although, yeah, you have just filled me full of spicy rice. And now I need a nap. I told you, I can chat at you.

You can sleep. Guys, if I'm gently snoring in the background of this. No, no, no.

I'm very good. Thank you. Very good.

Yeah. Good. Good.

How are you? I'm fine. I am back from my holiday, which was glorious. Um, there was lots of sitting by pools and drinking very watered down rum, which was the reason I was able to start drinking at eight o'clock in the morning.

Nice. Yeah, it was lovely. And now I'm back.

And I've just done the first day back at work. And it's all very much back to it. You did that thing like it.

And you used to go back to school after the summer holidays. I'm like, Oh, I can't write. I've forgotten how to write.

I did forget how to did it was the typing was fine. It's just that like, I'm because obviously, I am not a heathen. I know how to touch type.

And did you never do maybe speaking as a kid? Maybe speaking, maybe this beacon? Now you've said it does sound familiar. It was like a really ridiculous. Like they wrapped it up as a game.

Okay, definitely wasn't a game. But it basically taught you how to touch type. Yeah, I had to do it like different speeds.

And it's how you got your for some reason, we had it on our very old computer. She did. And it used to be I used to think it was the best game ever.

So I learned how to touch type quite early on. And, and yeah, and I'm normally really good at it. But when I haven't done it for a little while, I'm just like, absolutely no understanding of what it is I've typed.

But yeah, so I had that issue. But other than that, I'm all good. We're back to after half terms over the kids have gone back to school for a rest.

Because Yeah, I swear to God, my oldest, I don't know how much exercise she did while we were on holiday. Really? She was in that pool. She's very active.

She's just ridiculous. I was like, How are you not in a lot of pain? Like, she was just like, we go have breakfast. And you know, all inclusive.

You know, here we are women are the people again. But yeah, all inclusive. So you go and have like a ridiculously stodgy breakfast.

And especially when we're in Gran Canaria. So it's all like I had loads of Spanish tortilla and I was very happy about it. But yes, you eat all this stodgy food.

And then she's like straight away into the pool. And she didn't get out again until it was dinnertime at like seven o'clock that evening. Just madness.

Absolute madness. I used to be like that. I can remember being on holiday with either with my mum and that lot or with my dad and being like, just I just want to dive back in.

Leave me alone. I like swimming. You were too busy touch typing.

I was too busy touch typing yep yep yep. Setting business meetings. Buying low selling high.

No, we just because we used to do licking pencils. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was the episode where we spoke about licking pencils? See? I can't remember what we were talking about. Was it Johnny Dark? Maybe. It's got a bit I'm gonna have to listen to our back catalogue.

Yeah, it's been it's been a while. There's loads of like little jokes that we've made that like over time. It's only been a year, but I'm still like, is that what I'm asked? Or is it? Is it on the podcast or just a joke that we've had? Yeah, exactly.

I'm not sure it could be either of them. But yes, no, I'm back. I'm home.

You're not going to tell the Trevors about what you did? Oh, so yes. So those of you who I mean, I'm hoping that I'm going to say the thing that I think want me to say. You should know.

You should know what you did. Was it the submarine? No. You've already told the Trevors about the submarine.

Oh, is it the dolphins? No, it's not the dolphins. Don't dub yourself in with the dolphins. Trevors, Rachel made a new friend.

Trevors, Rachel made a new friend called Hannah. How do you think that went down? I should have remembered that that was going to be the thing. I couldn't have given a shit if that submarine exploded.

You should have thought about that, shouldn't you? Right. This bitch ain't big enough for the both of us. Right.

Let me explain. What happened was the kids on the first day there, they met a young lad who was in the pool. Should we say a child? Don't say a young lad because it makes it sound like you've just let him let them go off with some 18 year old.

He was six, just for clarification. But no, bless him. It was so sweet.

He was sitting by the pool and he was very, very Birmingham. Like to the point where I asked the question because it was really obvious. But I was like, oh, are you? Where are you from? And he said, Sutton.

And then I was like, oh, near Birmingham. And he went near Sutton High Street, which I thought was brilliant. But yeah, he had the thickest Brummie accent.

It was beautiful. And he was desperately trying to make friends with these other two boys that were at the pool. And they didn't speak a word of English.

I think they were German. And and he was talking to them in this really thick accent. And they were just looking at him as if to say, we have absolutely no chance.

Literally. I mean, I know it's a different language, but this is this is on like another level. I've got no idea what you're talking about.

So I sent my two over and was like, go and speak, go and see if he wants to play. And so they they became this little threesome for the for the holiday. And they were very sad when he had to go home because he left before we did.

But yes, his mom was a lady called Hannah. And we were chatting about life in Birmingham because she works there. She works on the road from where I used to live.

So there's all of that. And I said, well, I didn't say it. Will said to me after the first night.

Oh, you hung out in the evenings? One evening. You absolute whore. That's it.

You could do a case with her next week. Say fucking like it. Listen, she meant nothing to me.

She meant nothing. I know, was it good? Was your evening good? Did you have a nice time? It was purely for the children. Was it not? Yeah, no, no.

Oh, dear. But no, Will did say to me straight away, he was like, you cannot tell Hannah. You've met someone else called Hannah.

You can't. It's just, it's going to be the end of everything. Just meeting someone else.

As I say, I promise she meant nothing to me. Hannah, if you're listening, you're right, mate. Wow.

Wow, wow, wow. Wow. I genuinely do feel a little bit scared that you're going to stab me.

No, I'm just going to, I'm going to go and bumble. Friends bumble. Get myself some new mates.

Reach back out to some old acquaintances. Start burning this fucking bridge, whatever's going on here, eh? I see how it is. Do you play that game? Hussy? I love you.

Yeah, you should have thought about that before you cheated on me. I'm really, really sorry. I genuinely do mean it.

What can I do to make it up to you? Take me on holiday. Okay. Yes, I think that'll be sufficient.

I like the look of Cape Verde. Yeah, all right. We could go Cape Verde.

Should we do a girl's trip? Yes. All right, cool. Done.

There you go, Will. I'm not going to be around at some point. This is how you now find out my news when you edit this.

Oh lordy. Oh, that's tickled me. Thanks for that.

I did a half marathon. You did? You should talk about that. I did.

I walked a half marathon. I didn't run it because I am who I am. Yeah, fair.

But me and my mum and my sister did it on Friday, just gone, and we raised some dollars for a charity called Papyrus, which none, not one of the three of us can say properly. Also, I should just say, my voice is going, so I sound mental in my own ears. I don't know what it's going to sound like for you guys, Trevors.

Papyrus are a charity that work towards the prevention of suicide in young people, specifically those under 35, because it is the biggest killer of young people under 35. So yeah, we did that. Well done.

It was good fun. We should put the JustGiving link out. Oh gosh.

When we put this out. We're asking for Patreon money. We're asking, sponsor me money.

Well, just if anyone, if anyone fancies it, it's a very, very worthwhile cause. It is. And they're a lovely team at Papyrus, like all the comms that I've had with them to sort it all out and get our packs and all of that stuff.

They've been fabulous. Oh, nice. That's really good.

Yeah, I'll put the JustGiving link out. And if any lovely Trevors fancy sponsoring Hannah past tense for having done it, because what else have you done to your ankle? Oh, I've hurt my ankle. Yeah, you have.

You have. I'm limping about and I'm gutted because it's like, it looks like I can't handle a long walk. And if there's one thing we all know is that I'm having to have a whole week off my walking.

How am I going to live by the end of this week? I'm going to have gone absolutely insane. I can feel it already. My mum said, oh, why don't you do some other kind of exercise that doesn't involve your ankle for the week? And I was like, what, slither about in the water? Please do that.

Just please. Slithering about on the pavement, having a lovely time. Sorry, I just can't use my ankles.

That reminds me, there's a story, isn't there, about there was a friend of a friend when he was really young and he went into school and said, Miss, Miss, my uncle hurts me. And it went really like, they called social services and everything. They had to call safeguarding, do all of that.

And yeah, he meant ankle. Miss, Miss, my uncle hurts me. My uncle really hurts.

My uncle really hurts me. Oh, kids, honestly, will get you, hon. They really will.

That's amazing. But yes. Well, well done.

So I'm limping. My voice, it feels like I've swallowed glass. But generally, I'm in an OK mood.

That's good. That's good. Well, I've got a story for you, which is a little bit mental.

And I was reading it back while I was on holiday and was trying to work out. Did you read it to Hannah? No, I didn't read it to Hannah. I didn't.

I read it to myself, as it should be. But I was reading it back and I was a bit like, this is so mad. And there's so much that's going on that I'm really hoping I'm not going to confuse everyone with the amount of stuff.

OK, so bear with. I hope that it will be self-explanatory. But if I need to do any clarifications after the fact, I'm happy to do so.

So, yes, everyone settle in. Lovely stuff. And let me tell you the story of Mr. Paul Allen.

So, it's just gone 11pm on a summer night in July 2019. Inside a quiet suburban home on Malvern Drive in Woodford Green, a man is standing in his kitchen making a cup of tea. The lights are on.

His kids are asleep upstairs. It's a normal evening. And yes, I do know that Woodford Green is in East London and not South London.

I'm getting there, wait a minute. He doesn't know that outside two men are creeping through the back garden of a neighbouring house. They're watching him through the glass and one of them is holding a gun.

At 11.09, six shots shatter the silence and the windows and the back door of the home. One bullet severs the man's finger. Another passes clean through his throat and lodges in his spine.

His name is Paul Allen and he's not just anyone. He's a former cage fighter, for one thing, and also one of the masterminds behind Britain's biggest ever cash robbery. He survived that and he got away for a while too.

But on this night in Woodford Green, East London, he's left bleeding on the kitchen floor, struggling to breathe. He'll survive again, but just barely, and he'll never walk again. And as the car carrying his attackers speeds away into the darkness, detectives are left with a question that will take years to fully answer and a case that sees everything from huge high value robberies, international arrest warrants and extradition orders, and three men from South East London who had more audacity than you could ever imagine.

Here was Paul Allen. So to understand how we got here with a man bleeding out in his kitchen, gunned down in the dark, you need to know who Paul Allen really was. Because Allen wasn't just an innocent victim in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At one point in time, Mr. Allen was one of the most wanted men in Britain and part of the inner circle behind what's still considered the biggest cash robbery in UK history, also known as the Securitas depot heist of 2006. In the early hours of the 22nd of February that year, a gang of armed men wearing balaclavas and carrying AK-47s stormed the Securitas depot in Tombridge in Kent. The depot held millions of pounds in freshly printed Bank of England notes waiting to be distributed across the country.

To get in, they didn't go through the loading bays or try to climb a fence. They went through Colin Dixon, the depot manager. At about 6.30pm on Tuesday the 21st of February, Dixon was on his way home when he was pulled over by what he thought was an unmarked police car.

It had flashing blue lights and two men in police uniforms inside. They told him there was a problem with his car and when he got out they handcuffed him, bundled him into their vehicle and told him he was under arrest. But these weren't police, they were part of a gang.

Dixon was driven to a remote farm in Staplehurst, Kent, where he was tied up, blindfolded and threatened at gunpoint. They made it clear he needed to help them get into the depot and if he didn't or if he tried to raise the alarm, something bad would happen to him and his family and this wasn't a hollow threat. That same evening, another team from the gang turned up at Dixon's home in Herne Bay.

Posing again as police officers, they told Dixon's wife Lynn that her husband had been in a crash and that she and her young son needed to come with them to the hospital. They were driven instead to the same farm where Colin was being held. The gang had also recruited a man named Emir Hesanic, a 28-year-old Albanian national, to act as their inside man to help them alongside Dixon.

He obtained a job at the depot in late 2005 through a local recruitment agency and while at the depot, he memorised the layouts of the depot itself, observed the shift patterns and even asked questions about security protocols because it wouldn't be seen as weird when you worked there. He was fitted with a miniature surveillance camera, which he used to secretly film the inside of the depot, which gave the gang crucial information such as security camera angles, vault layouts, entry points and routines of the staff inside. To make sure they couldn't be identified, they also enlisted Michelle Hogg, a trained makeup artist with a degree from the London School of Fashion.

Hogg created detailed prosthetic disguises for several members of the gang, complete with false noses, chins, bald caps, beards and moustaches. Some were even assembled with improvised materials, bra straps, baby bottle teats and anything else that would help obscure their identities. They were disguises built to beat CCTV and witness descriptions.

So none of this was like, I don't know, there's a level of sophistication that we did not see potentially in the Millennium Dome heist. Although I hate to tell everyone that's listening because I know that you were desperately waiting for it, there are no furry bentos pies. I'm really sorry.

In the early hours of the next morning, just after 1am, Colin Dixon was driven back to the depot by the gang, now with his wife and son housed hostage elsewhere. He was told to play it straight and he did. Dixon convinced the night staff that everything was normal and that the policemen who were accompanying him were part of a routine drill.

Within minutes, 14 depot employees were tied up and locked in cages and the gang got to work. Over the course of the next hour, they loaded £53 million in used banknotes into a white Renault lorry. They had to leave behind £154 million because it simply wouldn't fit in the van.

By around 2.45am, the gang had vanished. No alarms, no gunfire, just the largest cash robbery in British history gone in the dark. It didn't take long for police to start naming suspects and before long, they were looking closely at Lee Murray, a rising MMA fighter from South London with a reputation for violence and his close associate, Paul Allen.

Allen fled the UK days after the robbery along with Murray and they travelled through Amsterdam into Spain and eventually on to Morocco. The two were finally arrested in a shopping mall in Rabat in June of 2006. Allen was extradited back to the UK in 2008 and eventually pleaded guilty to robbery and kidnap.

Because Murray had Moroccan citizenship, he couldn't be extradited but he's still imprisoned over there to this day. During his court appearances, Allen tried to downplay his role. He told the court that Murray had led him astray and that he didn't know what the gang were planning to do, stating during court questioning, maybe he, Murray, did deceive me.

I wasn't too pleased when I ended up in that Moroccan hellhole. But prosecutors weren't convinced. They produced evidence that Allen purchased the mini spy camera used by Hesinaj, brought the Vauxhall Vectra made to look like a police car during Dixon's kidnap and visited the flat where the prosthetic disguises were prepared.

Eventually, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison but he served just under 10 and was released in 2016. Upon his release, Allen returned to his native Woolwich in South London. However, just two years later, he was at the heart of another incident, this time outside his own front door in Woolwich, as he stood with his pregnant daughter.

They were both fired upon. There was another shooting. He wasn't hit.

His daughter was, but I think it was a minor injury. But the message was very clear. He's not safe.

Somebody wants him. So he moved quietly and carefully to Woodford Green in East London. New area, rented house, random fact.

Okay. The house that he was renting was once owned by, well, it was owned by Russell Cain, the comedian. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And he kept his head down. But what Allen didn't know was that in the months that followed, three other men from South East London were already drawing closer, not by accident, but by intent.

Their names were Daniel Kelly, Stuart O'Hearn and Lewis O'Hearn. We'll start with Daniel Kelly. I'm going to tell you about who these men were.

So he was seen as the orchestrator of this whole bizarre tale I'm about to tell you. Okay. So born in 1978, Daniel Kelly was already a name well known to police.

He was from South East London with links specifically to Plumstead and had 20 convictions for 60 offences dating back to when he was just 11 years old. His record included drug trafficking, robbery, firearms offences and serious violence. And in court, he was described flatly by the judge as a dangerous offender.

By 2015, Kelly's criminal operations had gone international. And I'm now going to do a quick side quest. Okay.

Which you will love. Okay. It's all about Japan.

Yeah. You've never been? Have you? I've been to Japan. Have you been to Japan? Have I never told you this? I've been to Japan.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

It's brand new information that you've never mentioned. I went there on my honeymoon, Travers. In 2015, a trio of men walk into the Harry Winston store, a luxury jewellery boutique in the upscale Omotesando district of Tokyo.

They're posing as customers. But within minutes, they punch and injure a security guard, smash the display cabinets and make off with 46 items. Diamond rings, high-end watches, luxury jewellery, all worth an estimated 106 million yen or about 679,000 pounds.

And then they vanish. CCTV picks them up entering Narita International Airport, checking into a hotel and ultimately fleeing the country. But it took ages for the Japanese police to work out who they were.

And eventually, they were revealed to be Daniel Kelly, his son, Kane Wright, and an associate named Joe Chappell. Now, Japan doesn't play around when it comes to law enforcement. And although there's no formal extradition treaty between Japan and the UK, in July of 2021, a special agreement was signed specifically to try and get Kelly, Wright and Chappell returned to Japan to stand trial.

And this was completely unprecedented. It has never happened before. And yeah, so the extradition process dragged on for years.

And to this day, Kelly remains a wanted man in Japan, has never been extradited. Oh, wow. So they're still trying to do it.

At one point, they decided not to extradite him because of other things that are about to happen. Okay. But yeah, he's still not actually been tried over in Japan, despite the fact that they want him.

So heading back to South London and the other men at the heart of the Paul Allen shooting, we meet the first of two brothers, Stuart Ahern. Stuart was born the same year as Kelly in 1978 and was described in court as a tradesman and father of five. He lived in Greenwich and had a longstanding criminal record, nine convictions for 26 offenses, including grievous bodily harm with intent and class A drug supply.

Despite his history, Stuart was described by his partner, Nicola Berry, as being, quote, a kind, loving and nice person who had made mistakes, but was committed to changing. After the incident with Allen, his employer had even promised to re-employ him upon his release, as he was such a good worker. Wow.

Now, I don't know what trade this man is in, but I feel like if your employer is willing to overlook the fact that you've shot a man, then you're pretty good at it. I would like to know if, I mean, is it plumbing? Is it electrics? Because I'll keep you in mind if you're that good a worker. The final man in this trio was the younger brother, Lewis Ahern, born in 1988.

Now, it's spelled L-O-U-I-S. Is that Lewis or Louis? I never know. I'm going to call him Lewis, just because... Pick one.

Yeah, fine. If it's Louis, I apologise. So yeah, he was born in 1988 and was 10 years younger than his older brother, Stuart.

According to their mum, Suzanne Ahern, who, side note, is a well-educated osteopath and pain management therapist who had her own clinic in New Eltham. Apparently, Lewis had a difficult childhood, but he was also described as being compassionate and empathetic. Despite this description, Lewis had also accumulated six convictions for 14 offences, including burglary and the possession of a stun gun.

The men were described by Met Police as being part of, quote, a team of men well-versed in criminality who had planned multiple crimes together. However, there is little known about how or when they came to work together. And the shooting of Paul Allen was not the first time that these men had been seen working together.

Right. There were two more known incidents, one which meant that they were banned from an entire country. Oh, OK.

Come on, then. Before the bullets went flying in East London, there was a museum, a quiet one nestled in the heart of Geneva's Old Town in the picturesque country of Switzerland. Tucked behind stone walls and trees, the Bau Foundation Museum of Far Eastern Art is hardly the kind of place you'd expect to find three men from South London armed with crowbars and angle grinders.

But that's exactly where Kelly and the Ahern brothers were on the night of the 1st of June, 2019. And the job they pulled there was the first visible sign of a criminal operation beginning to unravel. The Bau Foundation houses one of Europe's most prized collections of Chinese and Japanese art and porcelain, including Ming Dynasty ceramics dating back to the 14th and 15th century.

But what it didn't have were the usual modern day security measures you would expect as the norm for collections this priceless. There were no laser alarms, no armed guards, no steel shutters, and the gang knew this. They had clearly scoped out the job in advance.

The day before, Lewis Ahern was caught on CCTV walking around the museum, filming the entrance, the layout, the inside. Sound familiar? And he wasn't concerned about being seen doing this either. He was very bold in his actions, even though in the end, they do come back to bite him a bit.

Spoilers. And then in the early hours of the 1st of June, the three men arrived outside the museum in a Renault Colios. I'm not really sure what type of car it is.

It's a French one that they'd hired at Geneva Airport. But it had been hired under Stuart Ahern's real name. Right, okay.

So this is where we start to see quite a lot of similarities. Not the smartest of moves, but if we've learned anything from previous episodes related to heists, it's that these men never really make that many smart moves. Wearing gloves and masks, the trio smashed a pane of glass in the front door and forced their way in.

Once inside, they shattered a display case and grabbed three rare items. A pomegranate-shaped Ming vase, a Ducai-style Ming wine cup, which bore a chicken motif, and a porcelain Ming bowl. All three items were valued at a total of 2.87 million pounds.

Bloody hell. And they were in and out in minutes. But alongside the CCTV and the car in the Ahern name, there were other mistakes.

So as Stuart squeezed back through the door on his way out of the museum, he scraped his stomach, which left DNA on the doorframe. And then later, when Swiss police uploaded the DNA sample into the international database, it pinged immediately. Within days, the gang was home, but they were already trying to get rid of the loot.

One of the bowls was flown to an auction house in Hong Kong. And according to Swiss authorities, the seller, Stuart Ahern, used his own passport to register the item. OK, brilliant.

Another item, the pomegranate vase, was brought to a hotel in Mayfair, where undercover agents from the Met were posing as art buyers after the alarm was raised by the auction house that these might be the stolen items. Stuart and co-conspirator Vaki Niktoa walked in carrying the priceless porcelain in a JD sports bag. And they'd expected to get about four hundred and fifty thousand pounds, but instead were arrested on the spot.

And the third item, the Ducai cup, has never been recovered. Oh, wow. It's just in someone's cupboard, isn't it? It is.

Someone's just got it randomly. Like you'll find it on... At that grand. It'll turn up in Antiques Roadshow in like ten years time.

The Geneva case would become the start of a unique joint operation between Swiss and British police. They naively believed that having fled the country, they had escaped punishment, said Detective Chief Inspector Matt Webb, who led the Met's investigation. But they didn't bank on us working so closely with our Swiss counterparts.

It was, in fact, the first joint investigation team of its kind between Switzerland and the UK, which was set up to share evidence, timelines and forensic data across borders. Organised crime doesn't respect national boundaries, Webb said. And as this case shows, we'll use every tool we have to bring offenders to justice.

The drama. I know. At the time, no one, not even the police, had connected this museum burglary to a man like Paul Allen.

So because we've still not got back to him yet. So. But by July, just weeks later, the same men were hiring cars under the same names, using unregistered phones, wearing gloves and changing plates, staging burglaries and tracking Allen's movements.

And while the Ming vase sting gave police a glimpse of the gang's operation, it was what happened next that made it impossible to ignore. Because once you've burgled a Swiss museum in the night, there's only one place left to go. It's just after a month, just over a month after they smashed their way into a Geneva museum and stole nearly three million pound in Ming dynasty antiques.

The Ahern brothers and Daniel Kelly were back in the UK. On the 9th of July 2019, two days before Paul Allen was gunned down in his kitchen, the same three men were in Kent, pulling off a job that looked nothing like a museum burglary, but everything like a rehearsal. So the location was Ide Hill Hall, a luxury gated development near Sevenoaks in Kent, the sort of place you'd expect to be safe.

Expensive flats, gated entry and discreet security. But that night, Daniel Kelly, Stuart Ahern and Lewis Ahern arrived in a silver grey Renault Capture, the same make and colour as the car they'd later use in Woodford, and fitted it with a blue flashing light. Where have we heard this before? And they were posing as police officers.

Using fake identities and that blue light to gain entry, they told the on-site security that they were responding to a call of a disturbance, and the guard believed them and let them through. Once inside, the gang forced entry into one flat, stealing cash, designer trainers and handbags, and attempted to break into another one before fleeing. Now, this wasn't the first time this approach had worked, because back in 2006, during the Securitas Depot robbery, the gang Alan had belonged to had done exactly the same.

Yeah, so now we get to the night where we started. So on the night of the 11th of July 2019, the men had everything in place. They'd already pulled off a high-value international heist.

They'd successfully posed as police in a fake raid just two days earlier, and now they were ready for another job. That evening, Daniel Kelly and Lewis Ahern travelled from South London to Woodford Green in the silver-grey rental capture car, the one that they used in the 7X burglary. They had been rented by Stuart Ahern two days earlier from an Avis branch in Dartford.

They stopped at a Shell petrol garage on Shooters Hill Road, where Lewis Ahern was caught on CCTV buying a bottle of Oasis. OK. No news at this point in time whether it was the berry one or the orange one.

Or the citrus one. We're not sure. I feel like we might judge them.

I need to know. I need to know. Might judge them on their decision, if I'm honest.

But yeah, so he was there buying a drink, and the security footage, which would later be played in court, placed both men in the car just 90 minutes before the shooting. According to the data later pulled from traffic cameras, the capture was seen following a silver Mercedes registered to Paul Allen and his partner, Jade Bovingdon, as it travelled through areas of East London, including Bethnal Green, Snaresbrook and finally Woodford. And at 11.09pm, everything came together.

Paul Allen was in the kitchen of his rented home on Malvern Drive, and unbeknownst to him, Kelly and Lewis Ahern had entered the rear garden of a neighbouring property on Worcester Avenue, which backed directly onto Allen's. And from behind the fence, they had a clear line of sight through Allen's kitchen doors and then they fired the six shots. One bullet hit Allen in the hand, severing a finger, as I mentioned.

Another travelled through his throat, piercing soft tissue and embedding itself in his spinal cord. He collapsed instantly and inside the house, Jade Bovingdon saw the blood and screamed for help. Neighbours heard the chaos and rushed to help alongside a private security guard from the area.

Emergency services arrived quickly. Allen was stabilised and rushed to the Royal London Hospital, where surgeons were able to save his life, but the damage was permanent. The bullet lodged in his spine left him paralysed from the chest down, the judge would later say.

He is now entirely dependent on others for care and will never walk again. As the shots rang out, Kelly and Lewis fled back through the garden and jumped into the waiting car where Stuart was behind the wheel. They drove back towards Woolwich, avoiding major roads and shortly after crossing the Thames near North Greenwich, something crucial happened.

They stopped. Right. During that stop, Kelly or... Okay, so some people say it was Daniel Kelly, some people say it was Lewis Ahern.

I don't really think it matters. Right. But one of them did something that years later would blow the case wide open.

He threw an iPad mini into the river. What? Yeah. The crime scene at Malvern Drive was carefully secured and police recovered six bullet casings from a Glock self-loading handgun, scuff marks on the rear garden fence of the neighbouring property, DNA swabs from the fence, which matched both Lewis Ahern and Daniel Kelly, CCTV footage tracking the rental capture from earlier in the day and when police traced the car rental records, it was clear that the vehicle had been rented by Stuart Ahern, it had been returned the day after the shooting and they later recovered and forensically examined the car.

It was at Birmingham Airport by that point and inside they found Kelly's fingerprints. Fuck's sake. It's like they're not even trying.

I know, it's mad. There's so many random things that have happened. Yeah.

I also think it's almost like, well, what are the police going to catch them for first? Like, is it the museum heist? Is it robbery? Is it shoot, what? Yeah. It's mad. A search of Kelly's home in late August of 2019 also uncovered a laser sight compatible with the Glock pistol used in the attack and the digital evidence was also building but it was what they would find five years later that would tie it all together.

Five years? Yeah. Detective Superintendent Matt Webb who led the investigation was clear about what they were dealing with. This was a well-planned and orchestrated attempt to kill.

These weren't opportunists, they were experienced, disciplined and cold. By the end of 2019 all three men had been arrested. The forensic links were strong, the CCTV was compelling and the vehicle trail had been mapped from Dartford to Woodford but even with all of that the case wasn't watertight.

Police knew who the suspects were but they needed more. More on how Paul Allen had been found, more on how they tracked him and most importantly they needed proof of intent and for a long time they didn't have any of it until October 2024 when a clue dropped not from the heavens but from the defence table. In preparing his case Lewis Ahern submitted a defence statement claiming that after the shooting the Renault Capture had stopped briefly at a street near John Harrison Way in North Greenwich just across the Thames from East London.

According to Lewis he had got out of the car to get some air. He pointed to CCTV hoping it might place him away from the scene and cast doubt on his direct involvement but instead of clearing his name that tiny detail turned out to be the key to the entire case because police had never fully accounted for that stop and when they looked at the location something clicked. Straight away we were thinking if someone wants to get rid of something critical you don't just bin it said Detective Superintendent Matt Webb you throw it in the Thames.

And with that theory in mind police went down to the foreshore of the River Thames just downstream from the O2 Arena. They brought in officers with metal detectors working the wet mud and sand and there under just an inch of riverbed they found a mud-caked iPad Mini. Waterlogged, rusted and barely intact but inside it was a pink Vodafone SIM card and that SIM card turned out to be gold dust.

Once forensic technicians had dried the device and accessed its data the findings were extraordinary. The SIM card was linked to calls between Daniel Kelly and the Ahern brothers a GPS tracking system linked to a device that had been fitted under Paul Allen's Mercedes multiple burner phones that had all been purchased anonymously logins to email addresses connected to the suspects and over 59 purchases from Amazon and eBay including burner phones tracking devices and SIM cards. So this was the digital paper trail that the police had been looking for that chronicled the surveillance the preparation and the communications used to carry out the attempted murder of Paul Allen.

My jaw dropped said Webb what a beautiful piece of the puzzle we had DNA, vehicle data, forensics and this tied it all together. The iPad didn't just confirm what happened on the 11th of July it also helped link the same network to the Geneva Museum burglary because the same contact methods and burner phone patterns were used during the planning and aftermath of both crimes. The same tactics the same people the same reckless mistakes and now it was all documented in one slim broken tablet that had sat buried in the Thames mud for five years.

By late 2023 detectives in the UK had what they needed to charge Stuart and Louisa Ahern with conspiracy to murder but before they could stand trial for the shooting of Paul Allen there was another court waiting for them this time in Switzerland. In November of 2023 the Ahern brothers were extradited to Switzerland under a European arrest warrant the Swiss authorities charged them with aggravated theft relating to the 1st of June 2019 theft of the Ming artefacts and then in January 2024 the Ahern brothers appeared at the Palais de Justice in Geneva and confessed to the burglary. During sentencing both men made public statements of apology Stuart said I would like to say sorry to the person who owns the museum for the pain and inconvenience caused I would like to say sorry to the Swiss society in general and lastly I'd like to say sorry to Nicola and my mum.

Louisa Ahern also expressed regret saying I offer my condolences to the museum to Swiss society and to my family for the stress I've put them through. The court heard how Stuart's DNA was recovered from the smashed door frame as we mentioned before Louis had been seen filming the museum in the hours before the break-in and the stolen artefacts that were later traced through undercover met stings at the Mayfair hotel and the failed auction attempts in Hong Kong. They were sentenced to three and a half years in prison a five-year ban from entering Switzerland as a whole and an order to pay just under £14,000 in damages to the museum's managing foundation.

Judge Patrick Money said the men had acted out of a desire to enrich themselves and this desire was considerable. Until their return to the UK the brothers served their sentences at Champ d'Olonne a high security prison on the outskirts of Geneva and inside they were held on 23-hour lockdown with only minimal time outside their cells. According to statements submitted later in their UK trial both men were described as model prisoners by Swiss staff who said they were polite, compliant and that they engaged with the prison system.

Lewis Ahern in particular was noted to have kept in regular contact with his young son writing letters throughout his time in custody but even as they served their time in Switzerland preparations were underway for their return to the UK where far more serious charges were waiting. Daniel Kelly who had also been involved in the Geneva job was never extradited to Switzerland. Right, I was just about to ask that.

Yeah and this was because the Japanese authorities had submitted a competing extradition request accusing Kelly of the violent 2015 robbery in Tokyo and the UK courts ruled that the Swiss extradition could not go ahead while the Japanese case was active and so Kelly remained in Britain. So neither? Neither of them have happened because they saw that the attempted murder of Paul Allen was more important so he stayed to do his case here before he could then be extradited to Japan and then to Switzerland. Fucking hell.

So by early 2024 the Ahern brothers had served time abroad they'd pleaded guilty but in London the case had started with a shooting was about to enter its final stage and that was a trial at the Old Bailey. So when the conspiracies commit murder trial finally opened at the Old Bailey in early 2025 so we're up to the minute the iPad was the centrepiece of the prosecution's case it proved coordination surveillance and most importantly it helped to prove conspiracy to murder and for Detective Superintendent Matt Webb who had led the investigation for years the discovery of that iPad changed everything as we've mentioned before he said it's one of those cases where you keep scratching and you keep finding that's what solved it. It had been nearly six years since Paul Allen was shot but thanks to meticulous detective work a mountain of forensic evidence and one miraculous iPad the case against Daniel Kelly Lewis O'Hearn and Stuart O'Hearn was finally ready.

This wasn't a simple shooting trial it was a sprawling case that linked the Geneva Museum heist the domestic burglaries in Kent and the attempted assassination all together yeah and over the course of seven weeks a jury would hear how it all fit together. All three men were charged with conspiracy to murder Paul Allen while additional charges related to the Sevenoaks burglary had already been dealt with at Maidstone Crown Court they all pleaded not guilty. Really? Apparently.

Jesus. The prosecution which was led by Michael Shaw KC laid out the case in methodical detail. This was a meticulously researched and planned assassination attempt carried out by a team of men well versed in the criminality needed to pull it off he said.

The Crown didn't have to prove who fired the shots only that the three men had worked together to plan and carry out the attack and the evidence was overwhelming. So just to repeat just because I think it's astounding how much evidence there was. So they had DNA from the garden fence that matched Daniel Kelly and Louisa Hearn.

They had CCTV and ANPR or automatic number plate recognition cameras that attract the rental capture across London and Kent. Kelly's fingerprints were found inside that vehicle and a laser sight compatible with the Glock that had been used in the shooting was recovered from Kelly's home. Can I just say here me saying the word Glock I know it's hilarious.

It's very bizarre. And then I also enjoyed assassination earlier as well. That was lovely.

That was my Sean Connery assassination attempt. The iPad that was found in the Thames held as we said before GPS tracking data from a device that had been fitted to Alan's car burner phone contact logs between the three men order histories for SIM cards and unregistered devices and shared communications with email accounts that have been traced to Kelly and the Hearns. The Crown also highlighted the fake police raid at Ide Hill Hall as a key piece of evidence showing how the men used disguise coordination and controlled violence in the run up to the shooting.

Stuart Hearn's legal team argued that he was not present during the shooting and had no control over what happened that night. The judge would later accept this. Wow.

OK, but found him guilty of full conspiracy due to his role in planning, renting vehicles and transporting the shooters. There is a significant distinction between his role and the others. His barrister, Terence Wood said he was not at the scene and he had no control over the immediate events.

Later, during the UK trial, Lewis O'Hearn gave evidence and he was the only one of the three men to take the stand in his own defence. In that testimony, he claimed that he had only taken part in the Geneva burglary because he owed Daniel Kelly a debt. He said that he was under pressure and felt he had to.

OK. But it wasn't clear what that debt involved. And it was the first and only time that a personal motive was suggested for Lewis's involvement in the international heist.

Right. His barrister, Avarup Chowdhury said he's been in prison for almost six years. He's only seen his son once in that time because he gave evidence he'll be doing that sentence looking over his shoulder.

But the jury didn't buy it. No. Daniel Kelly chose not to testify and he sat silently in the dock for most of the trial, flanked by security and described by the judge as being a man with the main leadership role in the conspiracy.

And in her final remarks, Judge Sarah Whitehouse Casey told the court the underlying motive for the shooting remains unknown. I have no doubt this agreement to murder Paul Allen involved other people, but I'm satisfied that Daniel Kelly was higher up in the organisational chain and that he was the one who pulled the trigger. The court heard that Paul Allen had suffered life threatening and irreparable injuries and that he remained paralysed from the chest down.

There was no impact, victim impact statement read in court, but the judge noted he is dependent on others for all aspects of daily care. His quality of life has been permanently affected. Short of killing him, it could hardly be more serious.

On the 24th of March, 2015, sorry, 2025, the jury, I've no idea where 2015 came from. On the 24th of March, 2025, the jury returned their verdicts. All three men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

Rightly bloody. So they showed no emotion as the foreman delivered the results. The public gallery was largely empty.

There was no outburst, no visible relief, just the weight of the law finally falling into place. The courtroom was quiet. Two of the three men sat in the dock.

The third, Daniel Kelly, stayed in his cell, citing back pain, but the judge proceeded without him. On the morning of the 25th of April, 2025, at the Old Bailey, Judge Sarah Whitehouse Casey, prepared to deliver sentencing in a case that had stretched over six years, spanned three countries and uncovered a trail of violence, lies and digital footprints buried in the Thames. In front of her sat Stuart Ahern and Larissa Hearn.

Judge Whitehouse began with what was never really explained, the motive. So she says the underlying motive for the shooting remains unknown. I have no doubt this agreement to murder Paul Allen involved other people.

Daniel Kelly, though absent, received the heaviest sentence. He was given 36 years in prison, plus a five year licence extension. The judge named him as a dangerous offender and again, she said that she had no doubt that he was the one who'd actually pulled the trigger.

Lewis stood to hear his sentence of 33 years. According to courtroom reporting from the BBC and the Evening Standard, he showed no visible reaction. He was then taken down to cells without speaking and there was no statement offered publicly in court.

And then Stuart also stood in the doctor here, his sentence of 30 years. And like his brother, he showed no emotion and made no public statement. His barrister, Terence Wood, had earlier told the court, my client was not present at the scene of the shooting.

He has shown good conduct during his time in Switzerland and is a very different person to who he was in 2019. Yeah. So after all of this, what was the motive? Yeah.

Why did this happen? For trying to kill Paul Allen. Like, okay, you've gone on a... Some of you have gone on a burglary or like a fucking... Ram raided a shop in Japan. Yeah.

Then you've done some other burglaries and some bits and bobs. Then you go to Geneva and have a horrible time in a museum over there. Then you do some more burglaries around the place.

And then you just try and kill this man. Yeah. And there's no... I mean, we'll talk about it at the end, but like I find the whole dynamic of these three men, like no one can explain how they know each other apart from the fact that two of them live in Greenwich and one of them lives in Plumstead.

Okay. That they're part of some organised... Crime group. Crime group.

But no one knows what, or if they do, they've not publicly released it. So I don't know what... Like, sorry, am I jumping ahead? No, no, no, no. I'm just so confused.

It's mad. This is what I mean. So no, you're not jumping ahead.

But yes, let's try and work out what the motive was. What the hell's going on? So for everything that was proved at trial, there was one thing that still no one could say with certainty. Why? Yeah.

Why did Daniel Kelly, Lewis Ahern and Stuart Ahern go to such lengths to track, plan and nearly kill a man like Paul Allen? In court, the prosecution made no attempt to provide a motive because they didn't need to. The case was built on conspiracy, logistics and action, not the reasoning behind it. And in the aftermath, loads of theories swirled around.

Right. So I'm going to have a go through some of these. I'm going to have a chocolate.

Go for it. You can have a chocolate. It's Milka from Geneva.

It's lovely Milka. So I'm going to try and take you through some of the theories, but realistically, all of this is conjecture. So the most persistent rumour and the one that has been, I think this is probably the one that's got the most credence to it, is that there were millions of pounds from the Securitas depot robbery that never were recovered.

Right. So no one knows where this money is. Of the £53 million that was stolen, a significant portion, so around £32 million apparently, was never recovered.

Paul Allen was one of the central players in that heist. Lee Murray is still in a prison in Morocco. He served his time and he kept quiet.

But in a world that operates on loyalty, debt and silence, it's possible someone felt that he had something that they were owed. So they don't know if it was some sort of paid for hit. And actually the Hearns and Kelly were just the men carrying it out, rather than them being the ones who wanted it done.

Had any reason to actually do it. Exactly. So yeah, was it the money? Did he have secrets that others wanted to stay quiet? He'd been shot at before in Woolwich.

Or had someone simply decided it was time to settle an old score? We can't say for sure, but the theory remains a strong one. And to be honest, is probably the one that I would hedge a bet at. There's got to be something to do with the fact that he's got 32 million pounds.

Potentially, allegedly. Allegedly, sorry. Allegedly, potentially.

There's no real proof. But the fact that 32 million has never been found. You should see his wheelchair.

Yeah, to be fair. Another theory, which is less specific, but no less credible in this absolutely batshit story that I've just told you, is that this was all about reputation. So Paul Allen wasn't just a former robber.

He was a known name. And someone who'd been through the system, done his sentence, and come back out the other side. So for someone like Daniel Kelly, a man with 20 convictions and active extradition requests, taking out Allen might have been about making a statement.

And in organised crime, power isn't always about what you do. It's about who you take down. And for Allen, for all his efforts to disappear into Woodford Green, he may still have been seen as a threat or as some sort of opportunity to be like, I took down.

Like fucking hanging the head of a stag after a hunt kind of thing. Potentially, yeah. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Get a hobby. I know, to be fair.

Take up crocheting. It's very good. Just do something.

During the trial, Lewis Ahern testified that he had taken part in the Geneva Museum burglary to repay a debt to Daniel Kelly. He didn't explain what kind of debt, but the suggestion was clear that Kelly had real leverage over the brothers. And if he could recruit people like Lewis and Stuart into international crime, and if he could allegedly coordinate a violent robbery in Tokyo, and if he was running operations involving burner phones, tracking devices and layered digital networks, then the idea that he might have engineered Allen's shooting for someone else or as part of a wider strategy isn't that far fetched.

No, not at all. Especially considering what he said or rather didn't say in court because he gave zero evidence, refused to testify and stayed silent throughout the entire proceeding. Right.

And then there is the structure of the crimes themselves. So when you line up what happened at the Securitas Depot in 2006 and what Kelly and the Ahern's did in 2019, there are loads of parallels that you can't really ignore. So in both cases, the criminals posed as police officers to gain access or reduce suspicion.

They used Renault vehicles as their transport of choice. So it was a Renault Colios in Geneva, a Renault Captur in Sevenoaks and Woodford and it was a Renault van that was used in the Securitas one. That's a Renault van as well, just driving past.

Letting you know what it sounds like. They carried out well-rehearsed surveillance of their targets. They wore gloves, masks, disguises and used unregistered phones and tech.

And the entire operation was built on, now I put this down, I feel like I'm giving them too much credit, precision, silence and control. I don't think there was much precision. Calm down.

These weren't amateurs. They'd obviously been doing this for a while, but it's seen to be that they were copying a playbook, which was essentially the one that Paul Allen had helped write with the security depot one. What's also unclear is how well they knew Allen or even whether they'd met face to face ever.

In court, it was stated that Kelly had known Allen for 25 years and insisted that he had no issues with him. But beyond that, no confirmed link was presented by the prosecution or the defence. Still, all three defendants had longstanding ties to Plumstead, Woolwich and Greenwich, and they moved in overlapping criminal circles.

They all had experience with robbery, fraud and organised violence. So whether Kelly and Allen, and Kelly specifically, as considered to be the ringleader, whether they ever actually worked together is unclear, but their lives mirrored each other quite a lot. So there is this other assumption that they probably did know each other and it probably was some sort of copycat, mimicking thing happening.

So was this all about money, respect, revenge, or was Paul Allen simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, the right target for the wrong men? We may never know. What we do know is that three men went to extraordinary lengths to find him, track him and try to kill him and that he lived to see them sentenced. And he's never said anything? Nope.

Absolutely nothing. Wow. And that, my friend, that was the story of Paul Allen.

That was mad. It's mental, right? You warned me it was. I don't even know where to fucking start.

I know. It is absolutely bonkers. And when I was reading it and writing it, and genuinely I was like, I'm going all over the fucking ship here.

I'm in Japan. Now I'm back in London. Now I'm at the hotel in Mayfair.

Now I'm back in Geneva. It was mental. That's yeah.

And yeah, it all came to light properly. So what is interesting about the Ahern brothers is that when we first started writing down cases to cover, one of the names I put on was the Ahern brothers because I was Googling to just see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they'd come up as, I think it was in like Southwark News or something like that. And it was like criminals have been arrested or going to court this month or whatever. And they were on there and it was as a heist.

And this was before I'd found the Millennium Dome and all that stuff. So I'd put them down on the list and then March this year, my dad, hi dad, sent me a link to a BBC article that was all about them finding the iPad. Oh wow.

And suddenly I was like, hang the fuck on. I know that name. Let me go back.

So yeah, it's all mad. I mean, yeah, you just, it's gotta be. I think that first motive is the most reasonable and that's why Paul hasn't said anything himself.

Because anything he says to that then is either gonna dismiss that theory or confirm he's got the money. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

And I think it's the fact that he'd had somebody trying to take him out before. Yeah, when he was in Woolwich. And then someone, it's happened again a few years later.

Like there's got to be, people are after him for a reason. And yeah. Wow.

But he's quite active on social media. Really? God, what if he listens? Hi, Paul. I wasn't being derogatory about wheelchairs in general.

I just meant like, he's obviously got a flash one. He's got a very flash one. But yeah, he's quite active on social media, which I found really interesting.

And doesn't seem to, you know, to his credit, doesn't seem to have done anything illegal. But yeah, it is just baffling to think that. And why is it always, no offence anyone who's listening, but why is it always the idiots? Like, are you fucking kidding me? I know.

I'm going to go and hire a car. In my own name. In my own name.

I'm going to send this stolen 14th century artefact to Hong Kong using my passport. I'm going to take it. I'm going to take some other stuff to Hotel and Mayfair with the JD Sports bag.

It's just. Just checking it's like a big bag for life one or one of the drawstring ones that we all used to use as school bags. Now I have a photo of it and I can confirm it's the drawstring.

It is a drawstring. I will put it on the Instagram. Yeah, it's fucking mad.

But you know, I mean, I only mentioned one person. I can't remember his name now, but like there's, there were other people involved. There was a co-conspirator, co-conspirator.

So there are definitely other people who just weren't as caught up in it. But when you just go like, for fuck's sake, I know I'm on my way to try and shoot someone to death. I'll just, I'll really, you know what, I'm just parched.

I'll have an oasis. Really, really could do with an oasis actually. And yeah, and then let's, like iPad minis, destroy it before you throw it in the Thames, right? Or yeah, at least.

Take the fucking SIM card out. Take the SIM card out the very least. Like.

And also throw it proper. Because it's like, I don't believe that it's taken five years for that thing to come to shore and get buried in the mud. No, no.

That's like, you just plopped that over the edge. Yep. Give it a fucking chuck.

Yeah, exactly. Or get on a boat at a later date. Hire a speed boat.

Yeah, exactly. We've seen them work really well in heists. Bury it under the dome.

But I did just love the amount of links back where it's just like, we're going to scout, like we're going to scout out this building. But you think this was in 2019? Like at least the Millennium Dome won, right? Yeah. 25 years ago, when there was less security, it was a bit, you had to be audacious.

It could have worked. Yeah, exactly. But this one, like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, what? And also, sorry.

And again, to any Swiss listeners, I do apologise. Swiss listeners? Swiss listeners. What the fuck is a museum that has all this stuff? Oh, we just won't bother with some guards.

Yeah, no, that's pretty insane. Like, we just have all of this artefacts. Protect them! Be alright! Fine.

We double up the doors at night. It's alright, that'll do. It's just bonkers.

So yes, while no one died, thankfully, poor Mr. Allen. Yeah, I mean, that's just horrific. Yeah.

I'm not going to sit here and pontificate as to whether he was a nice person or not or anything like that, because I have no idea. But losing use of your body from the chest down is intense. Yeah, it is just a bit.

And I think that it must have been absolutely horrific when you think his kids were asleep upstairs. Jesus, how fucking scary. Yeah, exactly.

And I will show, again, on the Instagram, I will put the images of, they've got photos of the door and where the shots were fired. And it is, it's intense. And what I found quite interesting was I was reading, so it kind of brings us onto a caveat for something in the future, maybe.

When I send an email. Hannah and I went to see a, before I went on holiday, we went to go, we went to a talk by a man named Stephen Keogh, who is an ex-MIT or murder investigation team detective inspector, I think. Whatever the top one is.

Can you, you've got the book there. Detective inspector. So he was a detective inspector working in murder and the homicide division for 14 years out of Lewisham.

And we went to go and see a talk by him before I went away. And he's a very lovely man. It was really good.

It was such an interesting talk. And we happened to mention to him about the podcast. And there may be something coming up about it when I send an email.

But I was reading his book on holiday. It was the picture I posted on Insta. And in it, he was saying that, actually, I always thought, and we've said it on this podcast before, that shootings don't feel like a British crime.

They feel like something out of films. They feel like something out of America, if I'm honest. But he says in that book that actually they are incredibly common.

Stabbings are the number one. Yeah. But then guns come quite close afterwards.

I just wouldn't think it. I suppose just being naive. Well, yeah, we're probably not in the right circles, mate.

But yeah, they're actually quite, it's quite a common occurrence, not something that I thought happened in the UK. But there we go. There we go.

So there we go. Slightly mental. Yeah, very, very wild.

Well done, mate. Thank you. But if anyone does need any clarification at any point, let me know.

Because we did jump around everywhere just to bring it back to South London. The perpetrators were from South London. Yes, yes.

Very strongly from. We got that baby, don't worry. Just to let you know, because I did go all over the place on that one.

Yeah, I spoke like, not clarification, it's just the whole time you were telling me things and I was going, OK, OK, OK. Why? Yeah, I know, I know. It's just absolutely mad.

And it's so weird because it's like it started off as like, as I say, the first time I read about them, it was to do with the Geneva job. So there was me thinking it was just going to be about a museum robbery. And then the fact that it goes on to be attempted murder.

Yeah, but like, but you can't tell the story without all of the bits. And so it's just like, yeah, it's fascinating. And I'm sure there'll be a ridiculous movie or something about it.

There has to be something about it, surely. Like Netflix will suddenly announce next week that they've got a new five part series on it. That happens to us quite a lot.

All the fucking time they are listening to us. OK, Netflix with your Millennium Dome documentary. Exactly.

Hi royalties, maybe. Yeah, OK. For sure.

We never know. This voice is changing so quickly as I'm talking to you. Oh, bless you.

Well, I'll tell you what, we'll stop. We'll stop with the jibber jabber. I suppose that just leaves us with all the nice things now.

Indeed. So you can get in touch with us via the website, which is SinisterSouthPod.co.uk and it has been updated. I did that when I was on holiday.

She knows how to put it. Really do. And then we have the Instagram, which is Sinister South Pod.

TikTok, also Sinister South Pod. Email address is SinisterSouthPodcast at Gmail.com. So drop us a little message over there. Come say hi.

And then we've got the Facebook group run by the lovely Lou, which is Trevor's Unite. We are also not affiliated with that. We may look, but we're not the ones who said it.

Oh, yeah. But go and say hello because the people in there are absolutely lovely. And then Trevor's, we've obviously got the Patreon.

We have indeed. Which is, we put out the second episode on Patreon, didn't we? We have. So there's two extras that you can get your mitts on if you would, if you're so inclined over there.

We're also looking to try and do, well, we're trying to think of other shows, which makes it sound much grander than it is. But like other activities, things that we can do over on Patreon. So if anyone's got anything that they would like to see us do, then you can suggest it and we may listen or we may ignore it entirely, depending on what it is that you have suggested.

If it's going in a submarine with organ music. You've already done that. Shan't be doing that again.

It's your turn next week. Yep. Do you know who you're doing? Nope.

Fair. Fair, fair, fair. I shall check our website and see what you've updated it to and go, guess I'm doing that then.

I think it's one that you told me about already. So I think it's one that you've already written. Oh no.

Yeah. OK. Yeah, that's fine.

I don't need to do the admin on the podcast. That's fine. That one.

Yeah. Cool. Well, as always, it's been an absolute bloody pleasure.

We love you. We do. We'll speak to you later.

We'll see you next week. Bye.