'Mastermind' of Hatton Garden heist 'quit on first night'

ITV News correspondent Paul Davies reports.

The alleged mastermind of the Hatton Garden raid pulled out of the "largest burglary in English history" after failing to complete it in one night, a court heard.

Brian Reader backed out after the gang ran into difficulties trying to get into the vault on April 2.

While they managed to drill through the wall, the thieves were stopped in their tracks by a metal cabinet on the other side that was bolted to the floor.

They used different equipment to break in again the next night, this time stealing up to £14 million worth of loot including precious stones and bullion from safety deposit boxes in London's jewellery quarter.

Reader was not there but the 76-year-old has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary.

Three other "ringleaders" John "Kenny" Collins, 75, Daniel Jones, 58, and Terry Perkins, 67, have admitted the same charge.

Carl Wood, 58, William Lincoln, 60, and Jon Harbinson, 42, deny the offence.

A fourth man Hugh Doyle, 48, is charged with conspiracy to conceal, convert or transfer criminal property.

One of the alleged thieves, a red-haired man known only as Basil, remains at large.

Once inside the vault, the gang ransacked 73 of the 999 safe deposit boxes within it.

They then got it out the building in two wheelie bins and several bags through the fire escape.

Woolwich Crown Court heard the men waited until publicity surrounding the heist had gone down and then split it and went their separate ways.

But following the raid they continued to meet in public at various places in Islington, north London, including The Castle pub.

When police became suspicious of their involvement, they deployed expert lip readers in the venue.

And in the days before police arrested the gang, they placed a recording device in one of the "ringleaders" Tony Perkins car.

Perkins was recorded saying the gold from the raid was going to be his pension pot.

In a further recording, another of the alleged ringleaders Daniel Jones was heard boasting: "The biggest robbery in history, that's what they're saying. What a book you could write."

Some of the haul was recovered at a house in Enfield, north London, where the alleged ringleaders were arrested.

Police also dug up two bags of jewellery that had been stashed under the memorial stone of the grandfather of Jones's children, in Edmonton Cemetery.

The trial continues.