A masked robber who terrified female shop workers during a £400,000 jewellery heist in Northallerton has been ordered to repay over £32,000 after a judge made a confiscation order.
Victor Okumu, 40, was on the run from the immigration authorities at the time of the “planned, professionally-executed” robbery at Bradleys the Jewellers in Market Row in March 2019.
During the raid, Okumu — who was jailed for ten-and-a-half years in August 2019 — injured a female shop worker and utterly terrified one of her colleagues, but showed no remorse, telling a probation officer he was “entitled” to commit such crimes because he wasn’t happy with his lot and bragging that he would do the same again given the chance.
He had been issued with a deportation order eight years ago following a previous armed robbery, but immigration authorities appeared to lose track of him.
On March 11, 2019, he walked into Bradleys wearing a blue boiler suit and crash helmet with the visor pulled down, masquerading as a delivery driver.
He wedged the door open with an “L-shaped object” then walked up to the counter carrying a cardboard box which he pushed into the female shop assistant amid “screaming” and panic.
He then climbed onto the counter and, following a struggle with the female shop workers, plundered rings and other diamond-encrusted jewels from the window display.
He ran out of the store with £441,640 of jewellery – only half of which was recovered.
One of the shop workers suffered a cut to her hand which was bleeding profusely and required surgery, but it was uncertain whether Okumu was carrying a knife.
Witnesses said he had cycled to the shop on a pushbike and “simply propped it up against a tree” after travelling to Northallerton from his home in Middlesbrough.
Okumu, originally from Kenya, had planned the robbery for eight months and had “cased the joint” in the months before the raid.
He is believed to have conspired with others in planning the diamond heist and went on the run after the raid, travelling between London, Middlesbrough, Darlington and Northallerton.
He was finally arrested at a hotel in Fareham, Hampshire, on March 16, five days after the robbery.
Police found £212,000 of jewellery, which was mostly rings, in his coat pocket, said barrister David Gordon, who was prosecuting at the 2019 sentence hearing.
The injured shop assistant needed hospital treatment for a wound and tendon damage to her hand which left her with a “nasty scar”.
She was left emotionally scarred by the incident and her colleague had problems sleeping.
Okumu, who was said to be “extremely cool” during the robbery, had “not co-operated” with police efforts to trace the missing jewellery and remained silent during questioning.
He was said to have hidden some of the jewellery in Northallerton and returned to the town with others to gather the gems before his arrest.
In 2008, Okumu was jailed for 13 years at Harrow Crown Court for armed robbery after breaking into a woman’s home in London wielding a handgun.
He barged into the house and pointed the gun at the woman before demanding jewellery, punching her several times and pushing her over.
He then threatened to tie her up and lock her in the kitchen, before stealing “many sentimental items” including the woman’s wedding and engagement rings. He then drove off in her £45,000 Mercedes.
A deportation order was duly issued in 2013 but Okumu was released from prison in March 2014 – halfway through his sentence – after which he ended up in “immigration accommodation” in Middlesbrough.
When asked to explain why he had not been deported, Okumu blithely told officers: “They never got round to it.”
Okumu – whose last registered address was in Lazenby, Middlesbrough – was back in court on Monday for a financial confiscation hearing. It was a contested hearing because the prosecution alleged that he had hidden half the stolen jewellery, worth an estimated £229,640.
Okumu denied this, claiming that all the jewellery he had stolen had been found by police at the point of his arrest, and he contested the valuation of the jewels.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, made a confiscation order for £32,973 which Okumu will have to pay within three months.
He said at the previous sentence hearing that for whatever reason the deportation order “did not happen” and Okumu had been free to carry out a “terrifying” robbery at a “small jeweller’s shop in a small market town”.
He told Okumu: “You have told the (Probation Service) that you felt completely within your rights to commit that crime.
“You have shown very little sympathy and (you said) that you felt justified (in robbing the jewellers) and that you’d do it again unless your circumstances changed.
“You blame others for forcing you into committing the offences and on (the circumstances) in your life because you have not been provided with what you want.
“It seems to me that you have an overwhelming sense of entitlement and that if you don’t get what you want, you will take it from others…and I’m quite convinced that you are very dangerous.”
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