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		</div><p>The final Hatton Garden heist suspect known as “Basil” committed a “strikingly similar” burglary five years earlier, a court in England has heard.</p>
<p>Michael Seed, 58, is said to have avoided arrest when gang members were captured after what was at the time the largest burglary in English legal history.</p>
<p>An estimated £13.7 million of gold, cash and gems was taken from 73 boxes at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit in London’s diamond district after a drill was used to bore a hole into the vault wall during the 2015 Easter Bank Holiday weekend.</p>
<p>Around £1 million of jewellery and £45,000 in cash was stolen in a similar heist on the Chatila jewellery store in Bond Street on the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2010.</p>
<p>Prosecutor Philip Evans QC told a jury at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday the raids were <em>“two high-value burglaries… conducted by the same teams”</em>.</p>
<p>Five of the six men who were physically present at Hatton Garden – Brian Reader, 79, John Collins, 78, Daniel Jones, 61, Carl Wood, 61, and Terry Perkins, who died last year aged 69 – have been convicted of conspiring to carry out the burglary.</p>
<p>Four other people – William Lincoln, 63, Hugh Doyle, 51, Terri Robinson, 38, and Bren Walters, 47 – have also been convicted for their roles in the crime.</p>
<p>Prosecutor Philip Evans QC told the jury the final man to have entered Hatton Garden, known as Basil, was not arrested with the others, but is now on trial.</p>
<p><em>“The prosecution case is that ‘Basil’ was a nickname and the defendant, Michael Seed, is that man,”</em> he said.</p>
<p><em>“The prosecution say Seed was involved in the burglary of Hatton Garden and the subsequent laundering of the proceeds.”</em></p>
<p>The court heard the Hatton Garden burglary was plotted for months, with many of the meetings taking place in the Castle pub, in Pentonville Road, Islington – 1.5 miles from Seed’s flat – and Scotti’s, a nearby cafe.</p>
<p>Jurors were told police do not know whether Seed had a mobile phone at the time of the planning, so his movements and role are more difficult to determine than the others involved.</p>
<p>The probe into the heist revealed some of the same men had committed a <em>“strikingly similar”</em> burglary on the late August Bank Holiday weekend in 2010 of the Chatila jewellery store in Bond Street, the court heard.</p>
<p>Jones pleaded guilty to the burglary, while Perkins died in prison before he could be tried. Charles Matthews, 55, was convicted earlier this year of receiving stolen goods from Chatila.</p>
<p><em>“The prosecution alleges that this defendant, Mr Seed, was also a participant in that earlier 2010 burglary at Chatila,”</em> said Mr Evans.</p>
<p>Seed, of Liverpool Road, Islington, north London, denies two charges of conspiracy to commit burglary and one charge of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property.</p>
<p>He sat in the dock with thinning grey hair and wearing black-rimmed glasses and a blue sweater, as the case against him was opened.</p>
<p>The trial continues on Tuesday.</p>
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