Graduate offered Barclays job jailed after attempted burglary during riots

Chinne Menakaya, a graduate with a first in economics who had been offered a job at Barclays, was jailed for three years today for trying to burgle a jewellers during the riots.

Menakaya, who graduated from Brunel University with a First in Economics and Business Science, was part of a gang of nine who targeted Rainham Goldmine Jewellers in Essex on August 9.

Dressed in dark clothing and balaclavas and armed with bricks, the group got into two cars and drove to the shop after Menakaya received a Blackberry message saying it was unlikely to be protected by police with the other disturbances that were going on.

Once there they tried to break in by smashing the windows, not stopping even when a tenant of a flat upstairs poked his head out to tell them to stop. But they gave up when the reinforced windows would not break.

As they drove away one of the gang decided to attack and rob two innocent passers-by, beating one unconscious, for "items that were almost of no value," Wood Green Crown Court heard.

Menakaya, who was of previous good character, pleaded not guilty to attempted burglary but was convicted earlier this week along with five others.

Three more, including 20-year-old Toni Collins, who once received the Princess Diana Award for her services to various charities and had no previous convictions, admitted the charge.

In what Judge Simon Carr said was an "exceptional" case Collins, who was one of the drivers that night, was given a 12-month sentence in a young offenders institution, suspended for two years, plus 200 hours of unpaid work.

She broke down in tears as she was told she had escaped jail because she was the only one of the gang that had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

But the judge warned she would never get the chance again saying: "Do not let me regret what I have just done."

Caroline Moonan, representing Menakaya, said the 24-year-old had been due to start a £30,000 a-year job at Barclays last September but had now lost that and any prospect of a similar job in the future.

"He comes from a very respectable family. This has been an absolute tragedy for his family and for him," she said.

Sentencing Menakaya at Wood Green Crown Court, Judge Carr said: "Yours is a particularly depressing story. You had been given every opportunity and you chose to throw it away with what you did. And I suspect you were one of the leading lights based on the Blackberry evidence."

The judge added: "This was the third night of rioting. Anybody who went out knew exactly what they were injecting themselves in and the devastation that was being caused.

"The Blackberry messaging shows this was arranged and planned in advance. All nine of you got into two cars, dressed in dark clothing, with gloves and balaclavas, and armed with rocks and bricks.

"You went to a jewellers in a small Essex village which you hoped would have little or no protection from the police in the context of what was going on elsewhere.

"You then attacked the jewellers with considerable veracity and even when a man leant out the window and you realised it was also a residential property you continued. I have no doubt that if the windows had not been reinforced that jewellers would have been looted."

Collins Ilekhuoba, 24, was jailed for five years after also being convicted of the two robberies in which mobile phones were stolen.

John Ajidahun, 22, was jailed for three years and three months, while Esiri Sama, 26, and Boris Ladjouan, 21, were each locked up for three and a half years.

Michael Madubunyi, 28, was sentenced to three years while Matthew Aboderin, 19, got two and a half years,.Eighteen year-old Solomon Aloa, who had been studying a BTEC at Palmers College and achieved 10 GCSEs, was jailed for two years. All the gang came from Grays in Essex.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, Friday 10th February 2012