Mohammed Sabek threatened ex-colleagues at the Phones 4U store with meat cleaver

A Chiswick man has been jailed for five years after dressing in a burka and robbing the mobile phone shop where he used to work.

Mohammed Sabek, aged 27, of Grosvenor Road, W4 along with his accomplice Aneel Khan, aged 28 of Great Woodcote Park, Purley were former employees of the Phones 4U store in Putney. Sabek had resigned from the company a couple of months before the robbery and was under investigation by the store for alleged misconduct matters along with Khan who had also recently ceased working there.

Mohammed Sabek

They were each convicted of one count of conspiracy to rob on Thursday, 16 October, following a trial at Kingston Crown Court. On Friday, 24 October they were each sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

The court heard how on 2 October 2012 at approximately 6.50pm Sabek and Khan entered the store on Putney High Street wearing burkas.

They approached a sales assistant who was serving a customer at the time, threatened him with a meat cleaver and instructed him to close the front door. They then demanded to see the manager and requested the keys to the store room.

The sales assistant, customer and the manager of the store were then forced into a locked cage area in the basement where they were tied up.

Sabek and Khan then loaded over £40,000 worth of phones, tablets, accessories and cash into suitcases. Although no one was injured during the robbery, they threatened one of the victims to give a false statement to the police before stealing his ID card with his home address and left the store in a taxi to Hounslow.

Officers from Wandsworth CID established that an earlier attempt to rob the same store had been planned two days before.

On this occasion, Khan and Sabek decided not to go through with the robbery and they were caught on CCTV sitting inside a coffee shop with their disguises removed.

Detective Constable John Baldwin, from Wandsworth CID, said: “Both Sabek and Khan are now facing a long jail sentence because they thought by wearing clothing to conceal their face and body they could commit crime and not be caught.

“What both of them failed to realise is that the Met will use specialist teams and equipment to catch and prosecute those responsible for such acts.

“I hope that these sentences serve as a reminder to anybody thinking of committing serious crimes, that sooner or later they will be serving a lengthy custodial sentence.”

October 25, 2014