'Dome Raiders' case judge 'admitted dozing off'
The presiding judge in the “Dome Raiders” trial at the Old Bailey two years ago admitted dozing off during counsel’s final speeches, but denied “snoring audibly”, the Court of Appeal heard today.
“Everyone can be forgiven for momentary lapses of concentration, but it is another matter if there is sleepfulness accompanied by noises associated with sleep, drawing attention to the person who is asleep and deflecting the jury’s attention,” said defence counsel Edmund Romilly.
“It would raise in the minds of the jury the impression that the judge (Judge Michael Coombe) had such a dim view of the defence case that he could not be bothered to stay awake.”
Three appeal judges were hearing legal challenges by three of the men found guilty of plotting to carry out what would have been the biggest robbery in UK history – the planned snatch of £200m (€290m) worth of diamonds from the Millennium Dome.
The raid on November 7, 2000 was foiled when more than 100 armed police officers lay in wait as the gang ram-raided their way into the Thames-side tourist attraction on a JCB earthmover.
The raiders, armed with sledgehammers, a nail gun, ammonia and smoke grenades, were caught red-handed by armed police inches away from seizing jewels from the De Beers diamond exhibition vault.
The ringleaders – Raymond Betson, 41, from Chatham, Kent, and William Cockran, 50, from Catford, south east London – were each jailed for 18 years in February 2002 for conspiracy to rob.
Robert Adams, 59, of no fixed address, and Aldo Ciarrocchi, 33, of Balaclava Road, Bermondsey, south-east London, were sentenced to 15 years each.
Betson and Cockran are challenging their convictions and sentences.
Ciarrocchi appeals only against his jail term.
No appeal by Adams was before the court.
Lawyers for Betson and Cockran argued that they only stood to be convicted of the lesser offence of conspiracy to steal.
The Court of Appeal has already dismissed an appeal by a fifth man, Kevin Meredith, 36, against his five-year sentence for conspiracy to steal.
Meredith had been hired at the last moment to take the other four in a speedboat across the River Thames, had the raid succeeded.
