Van driver handcuffed himself in a faked armed robbery

Andrew Measor was allegedly the inside man in a plot to steal banknotes worth £920,000 from Loomis on December 30, 2021.

Measor, who had worked for the firm for around three years, said he had been raided after a man armed with a gun approached him as he left his home.

But prosecutors say the driver handcuffed himself to the steering wheel, then waited two hours before raising the alarm, in a faked robbery carried out with Stefanos Cantaris, 39, and five other men in Ilford, east London.

While signed off from work, Measor later told a friend that it was definitely an inside job, prosecutor Catherine Farrelly told the jury.

“That is probably one of the few things upon which Andrew Measor and the prosecution will agree during this trial – that this was an inside job.

“It won’t surprise you to hear me say the prosecution says that the evidence points squarely in the direction of Andrew Measor.”

The court heard that Measor met Cantaris on numerous occasions in the months leading up to the theft, alleged to have been carried out in a plot with Terrance Burrell, 57, Mark Kendall, 56, Paul McSweeney, 55, Saimir Neziri, 38, and Christopher Shipp, 35.

“The prosecution says that each of these defendants was involved in the theft of a large amount of money, with the assistance and full participation of the driver from whom the money was taken, Mr Measor,” said Ms Farrelly.

“They sought to hide this by faking a robbery. They have then, for the most part, successfully hidden the money that was stolen.”

Cantaris, from Epping, Essex, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft but denies conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Burrell, Theydon Bois; Shipp, Bishop’s Stortford; Neziri, Barnet; Measor, Loughton; McSweeney, from Watford; and Kendall, from Loughton, deny all three counts.

The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, continues.