A Workforce GB boxer who turned to a lifetime of crime when mind most cancers fears minimize his profession quick joined a gang that stole nearly £400,000 of BT telecoms gear.
Antonio Counihan, 33, dressed up in a tough hat and hi-viz jacket to pose as a workman earlier than breaking into Openreach vans to steal fibre optic set up equipment.
Joined by an confederate, the ex-lightweight skilled would clamber on prime of the autos and use slicing tools to ‘peel again’ the roofs.
The stolen tools was then fenced by a crooked businessman who used his fibre optics enterprise as a entrance to promote them on.
Now the previous athlete has been sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months after a decide at Warwick Crown Courtroom was advised of a ‘coronary heart wrenching’ finish to his promising boxing profession when he needed to bear exams for mind most cancers.
Counihan, from Solihull, close to Birmingham, who received 66 of his 80 newbie fights earlier than boxing for England greater than 20 occasions.
He had joined the Workforce GB squad in 2009 and at one level was captain earlier than turning professional after narrowly lacking out on a spot within the 2012 Olympic Video games in London.
Shortly after being signed by boxing supervisor Kelly Maloney, then generally known as Frank, Counihan’s profession started to say no after a ‘shadow’ was found on his mind.
He was unable to field competitively for 3 years and underwent a collection of scans earlier than docs found the shadow was in truth a delivery mark.
Along with his sporting profession over, he ran up playing money owed of £25,000 and began working as a cable fitter for a fibre optic set up subcontracting enterprise run by 35-year-old Michael George.
The gang would goal BT Openreach autos parked in a single day and minimize holes into the rooves with steel cutters.
Initially a small gap could be minimize into the roof to permit the contents of the van to be considered and if high-value fibre optic equipment was seen inside, a bigger gap was then made by slicing by and peeling again a piece of the roof.
The courtroom heard the gang ‘had specialist information of the operational workings of BT and of the excessive demand on the black marketplace for the specialist fibre optic set up tools’.
Additionally they used their experience in telecoms to establish the costliest objects inside earlier than looting the vans.
The gang began their legal enterprise within the West Midlands however their actions unfold into Warwickshire, West Mercia, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset and Essex.
In all, tools value £113,192 was stolen while £149,561 of injury was precipitated to the vans. BT calculated the racket, which ran from Might 2019 to January 2020, had price it £390,627 together with misplaced enterprise attributable to the thefts.
In two instances three Openreach vans have been focused in a single evening.
In a single raid the gang stole a splicing machine value £2225, an optical time-domain reflectometer value £2400, a crimson gentle generator value £135, a lightweight supply value £564, a fibre cleaver value £225; hand instruments value £450; and a labelling machine value £23. A fibre blowing head value £1480 was additionally broken within the raid.
Counihan acquired £2100 into his checking account only a day after one of many raids and went on a spending spree, shopping for designer clothes. Police started investigating after an off-duty BT worker took an image of him driving the gang’s getaway car.
They examined textual content messages he swapped with an confederate discussing ‘doing a peel’, which means going to steal, in addition to the sporting of excessive viz jackets and exhausting hats so they may ‘mix in’ throughout one of many raids. Additionally they mentioned needing ‘new snips’ after steel cutters they used have been discarded throughout a earlier raid.
There have been messages the place objects have been requested and plans shaped to steal to order.
Counihan despatched messages to an affiliate asking if he wished a splicer and discussing fibre optic tools that was accessible to buy. He then despatched screenshots stating that he had been ‘placing feelers out’.
When arrested in June 2020, Couniham initially denied wrongdoing. He later stated he participated as a driver and lookout throughout among the raids and was solely concerned within the sale of property stolen in a single.
He accepted he acquired ‘a couple of hundred kilos on common’.
Counihan later wrote a letter to the courtroom describing how he had risen to be a part of the GB Workforce, backed by lottery funding, and the way he went into colleges to encourage different youngsters to take up boxing.
After his profession ended, he stated his life ‘turned a whole mess’ and he was in a ‘dangerous place’ when he joined the gang.
Sentencing, Decide Anthony Potter stated the racket was a ‘brutal and extremely efficient nationwide conspiracy’ however cited delays within the case of two and a half years which had allowed Counihan to ‘flip his life round’.
The decide accepted that on the time of the racket Counihan had been ‘processing the lack of a profession that you just pursued for many of your childhood and into your maturity’ however stated he had since undergone a ‘important change’ after fathering a son.
George, from Birmingham, was given 21 months’ imprisonment suspended for 2 years and was ordered to finish 200 hours of unpaid work.
