An elderly couple were beaten, restrained, attacked with a zimmer frame and threatened with scissors and a cheese grater during a terrifying robbery inside their own home in which masked robbers stole £35,000 of jewellery and family heirlooms.
Michael and Janet Allenby, who were in their 70s and both in serious ill health, were inside their lounge when two balaclava-wearing thugs burst into their home in Barton Hill, a tiny hamlet near Malton.
The robbers, including Mark Gibbons, 44, “burst through the front door wearing balaclavas and gloves” and subjected the elderly couple to a horrific 30-minute ordeal, prosecutor Brooke Morrison told York Crown Court.
“Mark Gibbons hit both Michael and Janet Allenby,” added Ms Morrison.
He then grabbed 78-year-old Mr Allenby’s zimmer frame from beside the sofa and used the mobility aid to “pin him to the floor”.
Both Mr and Mrs Allenby were hit repeatedly to the face and body by Gibbons before he went searching through their house for valuables while the other robber – alleged to have been his younger brother John Gibbons – stood guard over the terrified couple.
The prosecution said it was John Gibbons, 38, who “stood guard” in the lounge, “demanding to know where their money was and using a pair of scissors to threaten them both,” but the court ultimately agreed that it could have been a third man who was terrorising the couple while Gibbons waited outside in the getaway car.
Ms Morrison said that each time one of the elderly victims tried to stand up, they would be hit repeatedly, knocking them back down, as Mrs Allenby, 74, bravely “tried to fight back”.
“Mr Allenby was pinned down by his own zimmer frame,” she added.
“He kept attempting to get back up, (but) he was found on the floor when police (and paramedics) arrived as Janet Allenby was unable to help him up herself. She did keep standing back up out of concern for her husband (but) was hit further.
“There was a threat at one stage that (the robbers) would get a cheese grater out of the kitchen and use this on Janet Allenby’s face, although no such implement was ever produced.”
Mrs Allenby said she had been “jabbed in the eyes” with the scissors by the brothers’ alleged accomplice, referred to as the “third man”. Both she and her husband insisted they were also attacked by a “man of colour”.
Meanwhile, Mark Gibbons ransacked the “entire house, turning it upside down, going through every room, emptying clothes and other items onto the bed and onto the floor”.
He even ransacked the bedroom of the couple’s late son Simon Allenby, who had died recently and whose room had since been left untouched.
Having bagged £35,000 of loot, the robbers ran out of the front door, taking the victims’ mobiles with them to prevent them reporting the incident and then dumping them on the driveway. Mrs Allenby called police from her house phone.
Ms Morrison said the stolen items included cash and watches belonging to their late son. Among the many high-value jewellery items stolen were those of a “great sentimental value”.
Some, including engagement jewellery, had been given to Mrs Allenby by her mother and grandmother when she was a child and there were jewellery items she had gifted to her 78-year-old husband. Much of the jewellery was still missing.
The robbers had also taken several watches that belonged to their late son and had even taken his passport and driving licence.
Both Mr and Mrs Allenby suffered bruising to their face, arms and torso during their horrific ordeal.
“Police made enquiries about anyone who had been to the property in recent months and through that they identified John and Michael Gibbons,” said Ms Morrison.
It transpired that John Gibbons, 38, had been to the couple’s home in the leafy North Yorkshire hamlet a few months previously, when he carried out gardening work at their home. He charged them over £3,000 for eight days’ work, which the couple paid, and is thought to have passed on information to his criminal cohorts about the vulnerability of the elderly couple and the lay-out of the “rather remote” house.
The brothers returned to the property in late October to carry out the terrifying raid after travelling from Dewsbury. When they were arrested two days after the robbery, Mark Gibbons was wearing jewellery, watches and cufflinks which Mrs Allenby had bought for her husband. Police found other stolen items “all over” the getaway car.
Both brothers were charged with robbery but initially denied the offence.
John Gibbons, of Prospect Road, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, claimed he had merely driven his older brother and another man to the couple’s home, not realising they were planning a robbery, and had acted “under duress” from another man he described as “frightening” and whom he refused to name.
Gibbons, who claimed he thought they were “going to steal a ride-on lawnmower”, was found guilty by a jury of his peers.
Mark Gibbons, of Kilpin Hill Lane, Dewsbury, admitted robbery a few days before he was due to face trial. A second, drug-related allegation was ultimately dropped by the prosecution.
The brothers appeared for sentence via video link today after being remanded in custody.
Mrs Allenby, who suffers from cancer, was due to read her victim statement in court but had to pull out because her husband, who had “never recovered from this incident”, was showing signs of dementia.
In the statement read out by the prosecution, she told of the horrific ordeal in which she and her husband had been “punched (repeatedly) in the face and temple”.
She said they were “still suffering” and now felt “uneasy in a home where we have lived for 38 years”.
“I didn’t sleep well due to cancer (even before the incident) but now I don’t sleep at all,” she added.
She said that “not content with ripping us off” for the gardening work, John Gibbons and his cohorts had the “audacity to invade our home” and “ransack (every room)”, including her late son’s which had been left exactly as it was when he died.
She said the robbers were “cowards, thugs” and their “callous, despicable actions” meant that her husband “can now barely walk at all”.
Mark Gibbons had a long criminal record comprising 53 offences, including five burglaries and robbery. John Gibbons had three previous convictions for offences including burglary and a caution for battery.
Defence barrister Glen Parsons, for John Gibbons, said there was still doubt as to whether his client entered the house and played a part in the “heavy, appalling violence that was meted out”.
He said it was unclear on which basis the jury had convicted Gibbons on what was a majority verdict.
Caroline Abraham, for Mark Gibbons, said her client was a family man who had graduated from amphetamine and cannabis use to crack cocaine.
She claimed that he had robbed the elderly couple “in part” to pay off drug debts to a named man.
Judge Sean Morris told the Gibbons brothers: “Your victims…were two pensioners in the twilight of their years who had recently lost their son.
“The pair of you – whether with a third person or not – hatched a plot to go to that house and commit serious crime.
“These two elderly people were enjoying themselves in their own home when two masked men crashed into their house…and, for 30 minutes, that couple were put through the most dreadful ordeal.
“The impact upon the couple has been great. It would appear, according to Janet Allenby’s statement, that (her husband) has never really recovered from this, and she says this has blighted, in effect, the end of their life.”
The judge said although the robbery was a “joint enterprise”, it was possible that the jury had convicted John Gibbons on the basis that he was not one of the men inside the house and it was therefore on that basis that he would be sentenced.
He told Mark Gibbons there was no doubt about his role and jailed him for 13 years and nine months. Gibbons was told he must serve two-thirds of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.
John Gibbons was jailed for nine-and-a-half years and he too must serve two-thirds of that sentence behind bars.
