Burglar who stole millions of pounds worth of jewellery from Hatton Garden in London loses appeal at the High Court

A burglar who helped to steal millions of pounds worth of jewellery from Hatton Garden in London has failed to reduce his extended sentence at the High Court today (19 March 2021).

John Collins (79) was part of a gang of six men who burgled the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Company in April 2015. Six men wearing high-visibility jackets entered the London premises over a Bank Holiday weekend, overcame the alarms and drilled their way into the safety deposit vault in the basement. They left with around £13.69m of gold, jewellery and precious stones.

After the gang was brought to justice in March 2016 the CPS started to recover the stolen funds.

In 2018, Collins, 78, was ordered to pay £7,635,233.31 . This amount was made up of a combined £6,396,273.75 with other gang members, with the remainder calculated separately from Collins’s assets.

On 1 August 2019, Collins was ordered to serve a further seven years default sentence at Westminster Magistrates Court after failing to pay the amount.

Collins applied to the High Court by way of a judicial review to seek a reduction of the default sentence. The Crown successfully resisted this and the application for a reduction of his default sentence was today dismissed by the High Court.

Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division, said: “John Collins was a key player in the Hatton Garden burglary and stood to benefit from millions of pounds. However, we always look to ensure criminals are not able to use these funds and secured a seven-year extension to Collins’s term in jail after he failed to pay back more than £7million.

“Today at the High Court, we successfully argued that Collins should continue to serve his extra time in prison while millions still remain to be paid.”