The leader of a gang that carried out an armed raid at the Peterborough Evening Telegraph and attacked journalists working there has been jailed for eight years.

Dean Shade, (24), was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London after pleading guilty to a series of robberies, including the one at the Evening Telegraph on January 8 last year.

At 11pm on that night, four Telegraph staff – photographers Alan Storer, David Lowndes and Adam Fairbrother, and football reporter Alan Swann – were still at work.

The gang broke in armed with baseball bats and ordered the journalists to lie on the floor, where they were kicked and threatened, before having their hands and feet tied with flex.

They stole £74,000 of computers and £12,500 of camera equipment, which they loaded into a white van parked outside.

But it was the van that would prove to be their downfall – thanks to the quick-thinking of the Evening Telegraph’s deputy chief photographer, David Lowndes.

Earlier in the evening, he had seen the van parked outside and, thinking it was unusual, took the registration number.

The court was told that on February 7, 2002, the van was spotted outside Shade’s home in Orpington, Kent, and police then mounted a surveillance operation. Their patience was rewarded two months later when Shade and three others broke into a business in Berkshire, again to steal computers, and were immediately arrested by waiting police.

David said after the hearing: “I took the registration number of the white van out of a hunch. It looked suspicious.

“I scribbled the number on a cardboard box in the office before I forgot it. When the gang was tying us up I was scared one of them would see it. It was in plain view. Luckily they didn’t. I’m delighted the hunch paid off.

“I am pleased Dean Shade has been caught and has been given the prison sentence he deserved.

“My colleagues and I will never forget what happened on that night. What happened to us was terrifying.”

Nigel Thornton, deputy editor of the Evening Telegraph, said yesterday: “This was a terrible ordeal for all the staff involved. Thankfully they all took it in their stride and reacted magnificently.

“We are particularly proud of David and his actions which led directly to a very dangerous man being put behind bars, where he belongs.”

Click here to read what the four journalists involved said about the ordeal.
Click here to read our original story about the raid.

Outside the Old Bailey, Detective Sergeant Keith Walters, who led the investigation, said Shade was involved in a network of gangsters who sold stolen computers to the Far East and the Evening Telegraph’s property was targeted for this purpose.

Overall, Shade was involved in the theft of more than £500,000 of computers from businesses. In addition to the Evening Telegraph robbery, he admitted two others, one count of burglary and one count of handling stolen goods.

DS Walters added it was possible that the gang received inside information at the newspaper, or used the Internet, to see if the company had made any large orders just before the raid.

Currently, he said, one gang member was being extradited from Holland for questioning in connection with raids in Peterborough; another suspected gang member will appear at Kingston Crown Court, London, in connection with other offences. Police are continuing to search for the other suspect.

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