Three men have been found guilty of the ‘terrifying’ robbery of the brothers of Premier League footballers Marcus Rashford and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Tariq Dervan, Romario Harmer and Talleko Lemonious face ‘lengthy’ jail sentences after they brutally attacked five men, including Dane Rashford and Tyler Alexander-Arnold.
The gang robbed the group of a £70,000 Range Rover, and watches while they were eating breakfast at a cafe in Moss Side, Liverpool.
On New Year’s Day 2019, Mr Alexander-Arnold and Mr Rashford had met with Daniel Payne, Jacob Dunne-Simon, and Tre Gill and went to a Caribbean takeaway.
They then drove to Brighton to watch Liverpool play a Premier League game. They parked on nearby Bowes Street before arriving at the café at about 10am.
Dane Rashford (left) with his brother Marcus (right) (Picture: Instagram)
The group ordered food to eat in before three masked men burst into the café about 10 to 15 minutes later.
The men, later identified as Dervan, Harmer, and Lemonious, attacked Mr Alexander-Arnold and Mr Rashford with a baseball bat and a sawn-off shotgun.
The bat was swung with such force that it broke and was left in the café. The attackers then threatened Mr Rashford and Mr Alexander-Arnold with a machete and demanded they hand over their watches.
Mr Alexander-Arnold was not wearing a watch, so instead handed over his wallet and the keys to his £70,000 Range Rover. Mr Rashford was made to hand over a Rolex worth £22,000, and Mr Dunne-Simon a Rolex worth up to £4,000.
The burglary happened at the Little Rock cafe (Credits: Google)
Mr Rashford explained that he could not see what was going on but then felt a ‘prick’ on his back before looking up and seeing a gun being ‘pointed towards my face’. At this point he ‘feared the worst’ and thought it was not worth losing his life over so handed over his watch.
Mr Alexander-Arnold described a similar experience and said there was ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ when they first arrived with only one other customer in the café. Out of nowhere, he heard a shout of ‘get your watch off’ and turned his head to see a bat being swung towards him, which hit him to the left side of his head.
He ‘immediately fell backwards’ off his chair and onto the floor where he could see two more men, one with a machete and another with a gun, he said. The shocking incident lasted a matter of minutes before Dervan, Harmer, and Lemonious fled in the stolen Range Rover and a BMW, leaving their injured victims.
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They then shortly after ‘flew’ past a police car travelling up to 70mph, the court heard.
The car was next seen on CCTV a few minutes later. Four figures were seen exiting the vehicles before one headed to some bushes. The stolen Range Rover was located via a tracker in the vehicle to the property where the BMW was also recovered.
Six men who were inside the property, including Dervan, Harmer and Lemonious, then surrendered themselves to police. No further action was taken against the other three men.
Jurors at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, also found all three men guilty of possessing a double-barrelled shotgun, as well as having a machete and a baseball bat.
Dervan, 22, Harmer, 21, and Lemonious, 27, had denied all charges against them.
Dervan and Harmer were found unanimously guilty on all counts, with Lemonious found guilty on all by a majority of 10-2.
Recorder Peter Horgan said that pre-sentence reports will need to be prepared by the probation service before a sentencing can take place, with lengthy jail sentences ‘inevitable’.
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Mr Horgan told the court: ‘You have been convicted of a number of serious offences for which you will be sentenced after a pre-sentence report has been prepared on you. I invite you to cooperate on those as this will assist me in determining the length of your sentence. I’m warning you not to expect anything other than a custodial sentence.’
Dervan, Harmer and Lemonious will be sentenced at Minshull Street Crown Court on March 20. Harmer had an application for bail refused.
Carl Miles, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West, said following the trial: ‘They carried out a terrifying armed robbery at a café in broad day light.
‘In their greed, they showed utter disregard for the impact on their targeted victims and other customers and staff in the cafe, who genuinely feared for their lives, and were not afraid to use violence to get what they wanted.
‘We worked closely with the police to build a strong case against them, including DNA and CCTV evidence, which we presented to the jury. After careful consideration of this evidence the jury found all three men guilty of all the offences they faced.
‘I would like to thank the victims for their help in bringing these violent men to justice in order to protect the public from further harm at his hands. I hope that the conclusion of the trial helps them move forward with their lives.’
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Tariq Dervan, Romario Harmer and Talleko Lemonious face jail after being found of robbery of the brothers of Marcus Rashford and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
