Grogan and Calderwood guilty of plotting terrifying armed robbery on Academy Snooker Club (From Bournemouth Echo)

Grogan and Calderwood guilty of plotting terrifying armed robbery on Academy Snooker Club

8:32am Friday 10th July 2009 in

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A CAREER criminal has been found guilty of plotting a terrifying armed robbery from the notorious Boscombe pub Deacons.

Billy Grogan was found guilty at Bournemouth Crown Court on Thursday (July 9) of conspiracy to rob over a gun and hammer raid at the town’s Academy Snooker Club.

The 48-year-old and co-defendant Alexander Calderwood, 47, used phone and text messages to direct two Deacons staff to the snooker club and made sure a security door was open.

The two raiders, Martin Trent and Martin Willis, attacked a blind man with a silver claw hammer, fired a pistol shot into the roof, and escaped with just over £4,000.

See links below for more background to this case

CCTV footage of the robbery

Former soldier Trent, 41, and Willis, 46, pleaded guilty to robbery before the trial.

Belfast-born Grogan has previously received jail sentences totalling more than 65 years for robbery and drug dealing and Calderwood is a former Ulster Defence Association member in Belfast with a conviction for murder.

Grogan was co-owner of Deacons at the time of the raid and Trent, Willis and Calderwood all lived and worked at the pub.

The officer in the case, Det Sgt Ashton Rietiker said afterwards: “Billy Grogan is a dangerous offender and it was important to obtain a conviction against him.

“I think he is the man who orchestrated and directed the robbery.

“Calderwood is Grogan’s best friend and I think he was quite happy to go along with whatever Billy Grogan said.

“I believe it was a robbery that was not well planned – I think they thought it was so easy they could get away with it.

“The fact they were able to acquire a firearm, which still remains unaccounted for, is a very real concern.”

The police relied on detailed analysis of the men’s phones and CCTV images from Deacons and The Academy to put Grogan and Calderwood in the frame over the raid at 3.20am on October 22 last year.

Grogan, of Belle Vue Road in Southbourne, directed operations from the pub and let the robbers in and out, while Calderwood posed as a normal customer at the snooker club and checked the security door was open.

The two balaclava-clad robbers escaped back to Deacons, in Christchurch Road, which was just 10 minutes walk away.

The jury, which was reduced by illness to 10 members, reached a majority 9-1 verdict after 11 hours and 47 minutes of deliberations spread over three days.

Judge Harvey Clarke QC said the defendants would get “very significant sentences” when they appear before the court again in August.