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Three burglars have been jailed for five years and three months each after stealing nearly \u00a31 million worth of weight loss drug Mounjaro from a distribution site.<\/p>\n
The trio broke into a pharmaceutical distribution site, Handley Page Way, St Albans, by climbing through a duct behind an air conditioning unit and breaking into a walk-in fridge.<\/p>\n
Mark Harding, 55; Robert Townsend, 59; and Peter Costello, 44, carried out a \u201chighly organised\u201d and \u201csophisticated\u201d burglary on January 24 this year.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday at St Albans Crown Court, Judge Jonathan Mann KC sentenced the three defendants after watching extensive CCTV footage of the incident.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cTools were used to cut through an air conditioning unit, which enabled Mr Costello and Mr Harding to enter the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the prosecution, the two of you used a ledge in order to enter the property and to avoid setting off the alarms.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing that must mean that you knew to do that, which means that this was thought about in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prosecution said Townsend had stayed outside as a \u201clookout\u201d and had \u201cscouted out\u201d the site a week earlier.<\/p>\n
Costello, of Sydney Road, Sutton; Harding, of Chertsey Road, Feltham; and Townsend, of Lower Pillory Down, Sutton, were all charged with burglary after being arrested on February 11.<\/p>\n
Harding and Townsend also admitted to possession of criminal property after being found with thousands of pounds secreted away in their homes.<\/p>\n
Some \u00a335,000 in cash was found in a picnic basket in Harding\u2019s wardrobe, while \u00a319,900 was found behind an extractor fan in Townsend\u2019s home, the court heard.<\/p>\n
All of that money was thought to relate to this offence and the \u00a3944,544.89 worth of weight loss drugs have not been found.<\/p>\n
Judge Mann said: \u201cI have no doubt in concluding that a great deal of money was made as an effect of the distribution of the Mounjaro.\u201d<\/p>\n
CCTV shown in court saw Costello and Harding both clad in black, wearing gloves and carrying torches, climb into the building through the air duct.<\/p>\n
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The men were jailed for stealing nearly \u00a31 million worth of weight loss drugs (PA)<\/p>\n
They then moved quickly through the site and \u201cforced open\u201d a large refrigerated area, where they began to take out boxes of the weight-loss drug.<\/p>\n
The defendants left and then came back for more boxes less than two hours later.<\/p>\n
Prosecuting, Harrie Austin-Jones said \u201cthere was advanced targeting and scoping of the building\u201d which meant they knew how to circumvent the alarms.<\/p>\n
They also sprayed black paint on some of the CCTV cameras, the court heard.<\/p>\n
On behalf of Harding, Graham Logan argued that he \u201cdidn\u2019t know the full extent of what was involved,\u201d and sought to minimise the sophistication of the burglary.<\/p>\n
However, Judge Mann was unconvinced and said \u201cit belies common sense\u201d that any of them did not know what they were getting themselves into.<\/p>\n
All three defendants had previous convictions, with Costello and Harding both prosecuted for other burglaries in the last decade.<\/p>\n
The trio were watched from a packed public gallery of their family and friends as each was jailed for five years and three months for burglary, with Townsend and Harding receiving nine-month concurrent sentences for the criminal property charge.<\/p>\n
Proceeds of crime proceedings will take place in relation to the criminal property found at the homes of Townsend and Harding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":["post-539511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}