Jail term for city jewellers

Two jewellers were today jailed for 12 months each after stolen property was found at their Wolverhampton shop.

Cash from the sale of rings, bracelets and other items that were taken during a number of burglaries was also found twice in three years at Gold Directors.

Half brothers Mark Lloyd, aged 38, and Roy Braham, 50, had a stockpile of thousands of goods that were believed to be stolen, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

Lloyd from Birchwood Road, in Penn and and Braham of Milton Court, in Perton both admitted three charges of possessing criminal property. One was a diamond setter and the other a ring mounter when they launched the shop, in School Street together in 1998 as a "legitimate business," the court heard.

A police raid in December 2003 unearthed 82 pieces of jewellery that were later positively identified by their owners as having been stolen during burglaries and robberies around the city. Some of the crimes had been committed up to seven years earlier although others had happened just weeks before officers struck.

The items included a £1,470 necklace reported stolen only months earlier. It had been bought from the same jewellers and had a valuation certificate signed by Gold Directors. Thousands of other suspected items were also seized in the raid but were not proved to have been stolen.

Officers also found £2,130 cash that the bosses admitted came from the sale of stolen property and a further £7,905 from similar sales when they revisited the premises in March 2006. There was no stolen jewellery at the shop on this occasion.

Both men, who were both of previous good character, stood impassively in the dock as Recorder Rachel Brand QC sentenced them.

The Gold Directors shop was closed today.