£500,000 store raid was foiled when manager heard drilling

It was about 9pm on January 29, 2008, that administrative manager Suzanne Pease went to clear some paperwork in the security area at Sainsbury’s at the Colton Retail Park in Leeds near junction 46 of the M1.

In that area, in addition to the supermarket safes, was a purpose-built room behind the cash machines where money would be delivered for staff to refill them.

While there she suddenly heard drilling and then, as she went to check, the sound of footsteps in the roof space above her head.

Fearing for her safety, she immediately contacted the police. When officers arrived those responsible had fled but the police found damage to the roof and abandoned equipment including a set of ladders.

The damage allowed access through the roof to an electrical room, below which work had begun to weaken the wall into the secure cashroom. It was clear the raiders intended to force entry when staff received cash to reload the ATMs.

Unknown to those officers who first arrived at the scene, those behind the plot were already the subject of an extensive and long- standing police investigation.

Dennis Slade and some of his closest associates had been under surveillance by a team of undercover officers for months and a white Toyota van regularly used by the gang was often seen near the store in previous weeks.

The undercover operation showed how the gang frequently scouted out other targets across West and North Yorkshire in the months before they were arrested.

On one day alone, January 10, 2008, a covert tracking device in the Toyota van showed it visited Brighouse, Huddersfield, Elland, Halifax and a number of roads with Post Offices in Bradford.

That afternoon the van continued to Bingley, Keighley, Ilkley, Otley, Wetherby, Boston Spa, back to Wetherby and on to Thirsk and Boroughbridge before returning to Boston Spa, parking up near the Post Office.

The van then went back to Sainsbury’s in Moortown, Leeds, before going near an industrial estate where a depot was sited with a cash-handling operation for two high street banks.

The final destination before the vehicle was parked up was the Loomis, formerly Securitas, cash-handling centre off St Hilda’s Road, Leeds.