Crime baron and his 'loyal henchmen' jailed for life

A TRIO of professional criminals who stole more than 1m from a security van and plotted to murder another crook have each been jailed for life after a judge described them as dangerous and ruthless.

Crime boss Dennis Slade, 34, was also barred from accessing the internet or having a mobile phone in prison in an attempt to stop him running any illegal activities from behind bars.

Jailing Slade and his “loyal henchmen” Richard Pearman and Michael Baxter yesterday at Leeds Crown Court, Judge Paul Hoffman said they were in the “premier league of crime” but there was a hierarchy between them.

“You, Slade, called the shots, you are the instigator, the catalyst, the man who paid the wage, got others to do much of the dirty work, incurring minimal risk and hands-on only when it suited you.”

But he said the others willingly took orders from him, even if one of them had complained of Slade’s meanness.

“You three were an inseparable trio of hard-core criminal gang members and all enthusiastically committed to the same criminal enterprises.”

The gang’s crimes over a three -year period included the robbery of a Securitas van near Warrington in 2006 which netted them over 1m, using a digger to ram raid Crossgates Post Office in Leeds in 2007 which the judge said could have killed or injured staff inside, and conspiracy to rob cash deliveries or cash machines at Sainsbury’s, Colton, Leeds in 2008.

All three were found guilty after a trial last year of conspiracy to murder.

Judge Hoffman said he was satisfied the target was another criminal, Ralph Roberts, and it was only because a gun jammed on one occasion outside a pub and the intervention of the police on another that they had not succeeded.

It was no mitigation the

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