A gang who tried to free a dangerous criminal from a prison van which ended in one of them being shot dead on a London street, has been jailed.
The attempt to free Izzet Eren as he was being driven in a custody van to a north London court was thwarted by police who had bugged their car.
When armed officers swooped, Jermaine Baker, 28, of Tottenham, was shot dead.
Judge Christopher Kinch described the actions of the gang as an “attack” on the criminal justice system.
He told Woolwich Crown Court they had threatened the public and put security staff at risk.
“DEPORTATION”
The court was told Izzet Eren had arranged the plot via a smuggled mobile phone which was found smashed in the van.
After the police operation to thwart the plot, a replica Uzi machine gun was recovered from the bugged stolen car.
Eren, 33, who arranged for the gang to spring him from the van, is currently serving 14 years after he was caught last October carrying a loaded pistol and a machine gun in north London while allegedly on his way to carry out a shooting.
He has now been jailed for a further five-and-half years for conspiracy to escape and two years for conspiracy to carry imitation firearms with criminal intent.
These will be served consecutively following the current 14-year jail sentence which was imposed in December.
“EREN HAD ORCHESTRATED THE ESCAPE PLAN”
The judge said Eren he was “the motive behind the whole sequence of events”, that he had “orchestrated” the escape plan and that he was “plainly a man of considerable influence” who exercised control and influence over the gang.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told the court that Eren “should not have been in the UK at all” as a condition of an eight-year prison sentence that he had previously been given for conspiracy to supply drugs was that he had to be deported.
His cousin Ozcan Eren, 32, of Wood Green, had denied the same charges relating to the escape plot but changed his plea part-way through the trial.
The judge said he was a “trusted and intimate lieutenant” of Izzet Eren whose key role was to act as a look-out and check the possible routes the prison van might take. He was jailed for eight years.