Four face prison over £1m bullion robbery plot

FOUR men are facing prison sentences over a plot to steal £1 million of gold and silver bullion.

They pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday to conspiracy to steal the bullion in Antwerp, Belgium, last October. It was said to be the property of Swiss company Metalor.

Bullion lorry driver Brian Mulcahay, 44, David Chatwood, 53, Stanley Rose, 74, and David Gale, 55, all from Essex, were remanded in custody.

Mulcahay was discovered by police locked in his vehicle in Belgium after calling his employers to say he had been robbed.

Chatwood was seen to contact some of the other conspirators four days later at a Harvester restaurant in Dartford, Kent.

Nine days after the robbery, most of the bullion was discovered in a flat and a hotel room in Antwerp which had been rented by Rose.

They will be sentenced later this year after the trials of six others accused of the same offence and of conspiracy to launder the proceeds of the crime.