£15,000 supermarket burglar from Cannock fails in prison sentence appeal

Michael Bryon from Cannock was jailed for four years for the burglary of a Sainsbury's last year.

A hearing at London's Appeal Court this week refused his bid to get his conviction overturned.

It was told in supermarkets it is common practice for cash to be transferred from the tills to the secure cash office in containers called 'flight pods'. And in January last year, staff at Sainsbury's in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, discovered a number of flight pods were arriving empty at the cash office.

Police were called and discovered burglars had cut the vacuum tube in the roof void and extracted the contents of several pods before putting empty containers back in the tube.

Tape was used to fill the holes where the vacuum tube was cut and it was on the tape that a mixed DNA match was found with the major portion of it matching Bryon's.

Crown counsel, Lindsay Cox, described the burglars' methods as 'ingenious and irregular'.

Barrister Jonathan Goodman, representing 36-year-old Bryon, of Mosswood Street, argued his conviction was 'unsafe' and should be overturned.

He said that details of Bryon's previous conviction for a similar burglary, at Tesco in Swindon, should not have been given to the jury.

It was not right for Bryon to be found guilty on the basis of the DNA evidence alone, the court was told.

Lord Justice Jackson explained how, in many supermarkets, 'it is common practice for cash to be transferred from the tills to the secure cash office in containers called 'flight pods'.'

Refusing the application, Lord Justice Jackson said: "In our view the bad character evidence against Bryon was properly admitted.

"The method of burglary used at the Swindon supermarket was a most unusual method.

"It is not unique; there have been other occasions when burglaries have been carried out in that manner, but it is certainly an unusual method of stealing from shops.

"It seems to us that the method of committing burglary at Swindon, and the method of committing burglary at Bury St Edmunds, were exactly the same.

"In our view the evidence of the previous conviction was properly admitted."

The judge, sitting with Mr Justice Nicol and Judge Peter Collier QC, concluded: "The evidence of bad character was not bolstering a weak case, it was supporting a strong one."

A previous court hearing was told staff had discovered £14,800 was missing after realising that 23 cash transport pods which had been sent from tills were empty.

When police arrived at the supermarket, officers investigating discovered that access to the roof space of the unit had been gained by forcing open a vent.

Mr Lindsay Cox had told the court that in 2010, Bryon had pleaded guilty to involvement in an almost identical burglary at a Tesco supermarket in Swindon.

On that occasion, despite admitting an offence of burglary, Bryon claimed that he had only acted as a getaway driver. That burglary netted £10,400.

He denied any involvement in the theft from the Sainsbury's at Moreton Hall, Bury St Edmunds.

However, he was jailed for a total of four years after being found guilty of a charge of burglary by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court.

During his trial Bryon had told the jury he was was unable to remember where he had been on the day of the theft on January 11 last year.