Jewel thieves get nine years

This white gold necklace is worth £220,000

Two thieves who stole jewellery worth more than £1.2m in raids on the same central London store have each been jailed for nine years.

Mark Needham, 24, from Paddington and Troy Benjamin, 25 from Acton, both west London, had gone to Kutchinsky's in Knightsbridge on stolen motorbikes.

They used a sledgehammer to smash the glass windows and grabbed the gems in two raids on 19 February and 21 March.

They were convicted of burglary at Harrow Crown Court on Monday.

Brian O'Neill, prosecuting, had told the court that gems worth £571,000 were taken in the first raid including a platinum, pear-shaped diamond necklace.

'High stakes'

The second identical raid involved diamonds priced at £655,000.

CCTV pictures had showed the men driving down a pavement narrowly missing shoppers as they made their escape.

Sentencing them, Judge Barrington Black said it was "absolutely plain that you were playing for extremely high stakes" and added the goods had never been recovered.

"Those of us who saw the video of the motorcycle being driven at some speed along the pavement where shoppers were present, will have been surprised no-one was injured in the course of these two burglaries."

As the pair laughed and joked, the judge said each would have to serve an additional 356 days in prison for breaches of "licence" conditions relating to partially served prison sentences imposed by other courts.