Gang admit £230,000 armed jewellery store raid

Three men have admitted carrying out a £230,000 armed robbery on a jewellers at the Argyll Arcade in Glasgow last year. 

Jason Yendall, 29, Aaron Brannan, 24, and Jason Britton,23, pleaded guilty to the armed raid on the jewellery retailer Rox in the Argyll Arcade. In total, 21 watches were stolen, including 19 Hublot watches, some worth between £19,000 and £23,000 – none of which have been recovered.

The three men were part of a gang of five who also admitted being involved in a £20,000 bank robbery at RBS in Edinburgh just days after the Argyll Arcade raid, the High Court in Glasgow heard yesterday.

Alongside the three men, Alistair Oliver, 30, and Gordon Mclay, 32, both from East Lothian pleaded guilty to the RBS robbery and to handling and selling on stolen watches from Rox.

The court heard how the gang drove a stolen Volkswagen Golf and van from Edinburgh, parking the van in Castle Street in Glagow and the car in a lane near the Argyll Arcade.

The men then ran into the shopping centre and entered Rox where CCTV showed them smashing display windows and filling a sports bag with watches.

A staff member of Rox managed to hit a panic alarm while a staff member in another jewellery shop in the arcade activated a smoke security systems which filled the area. The men made off in the Golf and abandoned it in Castle Street, where they got into the van and headed back to Edinburgh, the court heard.

Detective Inspector Alasdair Barlow, the senior investigating officer, said: “This was a horrendous incident which unfolded in broad daylight in the middle of a busy Glasgow shopping centre. These men had absolutely no regard for the terror they were causing innocent shoppers as they rampaged through Argyll Arcade.

“These men were brazen, and no doubt thought they’d gotten away with it, even to the point they were involved in another robbery in Edinburgh just days afterwards.”