Wish you were here? Holiday escapes where Hatton Garden gang members planned to live off £14 million spoils revealed
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These are the holiday escapes of two of the Hatton Garden gang – where they planned to live off the £14million spoils.
But instead of spending their days propping up bars in Spain and Portugal, John “Kenny” Collins and Terry Perkins now face dying behind bars – after each being given an extra seven years in jail.
As their sunshine homes were seized in a proceeds of crime probe, the Sunday People can reveal Collins, 77, had more than £1million in cash and assets.
As well as his £175,000 flat on the Costa del Sol, police have recovered £661,698 from nine bank accounts.
He must also hand over another £410,000 – half the value of the ex-council home he shared with his common law wife in Islington, North London.
(Image: Metropolitan Police)
(Image: Metropolitan Police)
Perkins, 69, who claims he suffered a heart attack in prison, has lost his £72,000 flat on the Algarve.
Police also seized £1,340 in cash and 330 euros.
All four men doing time for the raid over the Easter bank holiday three years ago were told this week they must each pay up to £7.6million – or spend another seven years in jail. A source said: “Kenny made a lot of money importing illegal cigarettes over the years.
“He didn’t need any more when he did Hatton Garden. They’ll both be fuming.” Collins, described by one of the gang as “wombat thick”, was only brought in on the job as a favour from his pal, mastermind Brian Reader, 78.
But he fell asleep while on lookout and had to be woken up by another gang member known as Basil, who has never been brought to justice. Collins led to the downfall of the gang after driving to the vault in his own distinctive Mercedes. Born into a large Irish family in Tottenham, North London, he is said to like a Guinness – his flat near Malaga is close to Casey Duke’s Irish bar.
Perkins had planned to buy more property in Portugal with his cut, hoping to rent it out. He had previously built a property empire on the proceeds of armed robbery – but lost it when he was jailed in 1985 over a £5million Security Express armed robbery in Shoreditch, East London.
He went “on his toes” near the end of his 22-year sentence but was recaptured –and had only been out three years when he joined the Hatton Garden gang.
Collins, Perkins and Daniel Jones, 63, are serving seven years, while Reader was jailed for six years, three months and had hoped to be freed later this year having served half his sentence.
(Image: PA)
Since being arrested, the men have suffered from throat cancer, a stroke and a heart attack.
Reader is wheelchair-bound and has lost most of his sight and hearing while being treated for prostate cancer.
In his ruling last week, judge Chris­topher Kinch QC said the men had benefited from an estimated £13.69million of cash, gold and gems stolen from 73 boxes at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit in London’s jewellery quarter.
They had abseiled down a lift shaft, disabled the hi-tech alarm and used a diamond-tip drill to cut through the wall.
(Image: PA)
The judge acknowledged the men’s health problems, but said: “It is difficult to endorse particular treatment for someone who chooses to commit ­offences at the advanced stage of their lives that some of these were.”
The men were ordered to hand over sums ranging from £6,526,571 to £7,686,039. The Crown Prosecution Service said afterwards: “Much of the stolen property has not been returned.
“If further assets become available, the CPS will ask the court to increase these confiscation orders.”
Barrister Tom Wainwright, for Reader, said his client’s sentence “does not have to be very long for it to mean he will serve the rest of his life in custody”.
The story of Reader’s life has been told in a Mirror book, One Last Job, lifting the lid on his decades as “the last of the gentleman thieves”.