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Kent man in court following Robertsbridge farm burglary

A post-mortem examination found Mr Gardner suffered multiple injuries at his farm. Five men in court over farm death

A Kent man charged with burglary after an inquiry into the death of a Sussex businessman has appeared in court.

Marcus Bristow, of Ashford, is accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to burgle.

The 31-year-old appeared before Hastings magistrates and was remanded in custody. He is due to appear before Lewes Crown Court on 24 June.

Julian Gardner, 53, was killed last October after apparently disturbing intruders at his Robertsbridge farm car repair business
 
Mr Gardner was found by his business partner at Bush Barn Farm in the early hours of 11 October 2010.

A post-mortem examination found Mr Gardner, who ran an agricultural and car repair business, suffered multiple injuries.

Five other Kent men are already facing charges over the incident and are also due to appear before Lewes Crown Court later this month.

Lee Delay, 22, of Whitegate Close, Tunbridge Wells, Christopher Leek, 29, of Pear Tree Close, Cranbrook, Paul Dunn, 32, of Frythe Crescent, Cranbrook, and Terry Bristow, 40, of Chilmington, Ashford, have also been charged with burglary and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.Terence Dunn, 56, of Tanyard Estate, Sandhurst, has been charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

 Affinity One Security Solutions

Tel 08000 336 999 Specialist in Burglar

Alarms, CCTV and Security Solutions 

Raids target rise in London burglaries and robberies

The Met has arrested 48 people in a series of raids across London to target the rise in robberies and burglaries.

Operation Target is the largest such operation carried out by police and is expected to last six months.

It focuses on areas which cover just 2% of the city but which see a third of London's muggings and 15% of residential burglaries.

Over the past year in London, domestic burglary has risen by 14% and robberies have gone up by 11%.

Burglary is up 6.4% since April compared with the same time last year and robbery is up by 12.1%.

More than 1,500 officers took part in Wednesday's raids. They have carried out 163 operations in which three shotguns, a revolver and drugs have been seized. At one address 100 mobile phones were found.

Seventy to 100 cannabis plants were found in a north-west London borough.

The 32 arrests are on suspicion of offences including possession of firearms, burglary, supply of drugs, public order and theft.

There will be increased patrols in key areas and specialist teams, such as the Flying Squad, helping local police.

Specialist investigation teams will help trace and arrest wanted or suspected robbers and burglars.

Assistant Commissioner Ian McPherson said: "Operation Target is to be the largest sustained crackdown against crimes such as robbery, burglary and violence ever conducted by the Met.

"While robbery and burglary are still relatively low in comparison to previous years we are determined to cut these offences further."

The officer leading Operation Target, Commander Maxine de Brunner, added: "Target is a long-term drive to reduce crime and keep it down.

"The operation is due to last for at least six months and will see the relentless deployment of our specialist assets, resources, tactics and skills in areas which suffer disproportionate levels of crime and anti-social behaviour."

London Mayor Boris Johnson accompanied officers on one of the raids.

A house burglar was  caught after a webcam on the owner's computer recorded images of him carrying out the raid. Stills of serial raider Benjamin Park, 19, of Cambridge, were sent to an email address so even when he stole the computer, the images could be found. Police said it was a "brilliant idea" of software engineer Duncan Grisby, who set it after a previous burglary. Park was given an 11-month jail term by magistrates in Cambridge on Tuesday after admitting burglary. "I was burgled three years ago and was annoyed at the time because I had thought about setting this system up then, but hadn't got around to it," said Mr Grisby. "I was relieved it did what I'd intended it to when I was burgled again. It was nice to catch him in the act - but it didn't stop him from stealing my things. So how does it work? "The burglary was a real violation of my private space but at least he got caught. "I just wish he'd got a longer sentence." Mr Grisby said the system was easy to set up. "There are lot of products for Windows that you can use to do this - though I used some free software and wrote some extra software myself." Police described Mr Grisby's idea as "absolutely brilliant". The webcam was set up in his computer and began filming once it registered motion. It captured every movement Park made," said Det Sgt Alan page, head of Cambridgeshire Police Burglary Squad. At one point he stared into the computer as if it might be making a noise or something to make him suspicious. He then stole the computer but it didn't matter because Mr Grisby had set it up so that as it was recording it was sending the images to an email address. "When the break-in was discovered Mr Grisby simply gave us the email address and we were able to watch several minutes of footage and say, `That's Ben Park'. "Mr Grisby is an extremely bright man. He'd set this up because he'd been burgled some years ago and the quality was superb. 'Better than alarm' "It was better than a burglar alarm and when Park initially denied breaking in to the property we were simply able to show him the footage." Magistrates heard Park, who has more than 13 previous convictions for theft, had stolen computer equipment and other property with a value of nearly £4,000 from Mr Grisby's study. He committed the offence in February while on bail after being charged with an attempted burglary in Ely, Cambridgeshire, in August. "The webcam made our job really easy," added DS Page. "It was a pleasure to show him the pictures and see his expression when we interviewed him." So how did Duncan Grisby catch the burglar in the act? There are many commercial software packages available to capture images from a web cam and send them to an e-mail address or over the internet to a web page. But Mr Grisby took a more Do-It-Yourself route which requires some technical knowledge. He used a cheap video camera which is plugged into a video card inside his PC to capture the images. Software running on the PC - which must be left switched on and have an "always-on" internet connection - detects motion and activiates a separate program written by Mr Grisby. That program instructs the computer to grab photos from the video camera - up to five stills per second - and then send them to an e-mail address or over the internet to a webpage where they are stored for viewing.