Hatton Garden heist: 'Mastermind' pensioner Brian Reader used Freedom pass to reach £14m raid, court told
A pensioner described as a mastermind of the Hatton Garden heist used a Freedom Pass to get there, a court has heard.
Brian Reader, 76, used the card - which gives free travel on London transport for people aged over 60 - to get the jewellery quarter on the night of the £14 million pound heist, the jury was told.
Reader - dubbed "The Master" by his co-conspirators - was said to have been instrumental in planning the audacious burglary, which saw items including precious stones and bullion looted from safety deposit boxes in the capital's diamond district.
However, the court had previously been told he withdrew from the heist after the gang failed to complete it in one night.
Police claimed the Oyster card actually belonged to someone else, named Mr T. McCarthy.
The trial heard that Mr Reader travelled to the central London district by taking the 96 bus from his home in Dartford, before exiting Waterloo East station at around 6.30pm.
He then caught the number 55 bus to St John Street - around a five minute walk from Hatton Garden.
Mr Reader has admitted conspiracy to commit burglary, while three other alleged "ringleaders" - John "Kenny" Collins, 75, Daniel Jones, 58, and Terry Perkins, 67 - have admitted the same charge.
Carl Wood, 58, William Lincoln, 60, aand Jon Harbinson, 42, deny the offence.
Another man, Hugh Doyle, 48, denies conspiracy to conceal, convert or transfer criminal property while one of the alleged thieves - a red-haired man known only as Basil - is still on the loose.
The daring robbery took place at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd, with a gang armed with heavy machinery breaking into the company's vault before ransacking 73 safe deposit boxes.
They then carried it out of the building in two wheelie bins and several bags through the fire escape.
After the raid, the gang continued to meet in public places across Islington, including The Castle pub - with police deploying expert lip readers to the venue after becoming suspicious of their involvement.
Some of the haul was recovered at a house in the Enfield, north London, where the alleged ringleaders were arrested.
Police also uncovered two bags of jewellery stashed in an Edmonton cemetery, under the memorial stone of the grandfather of Jones' children.
The trial continues