Islam versus Europe

GANG members, including one dressed in a burkha, who staged a frenzied attack on a Burnley jewellers have been jailed for a total of more than 42 years.

CCTV footage showed how one robber posed as a female wearing a burkha to get into Muzzafer’s Jewellers in Brougham Street, closely followed by three accomplices wielding an imitation rifle, sword and metal baseball bats.

After Judge Pamela Badley jailed each of them at Preston Crown Court, the Burnley councillor for the area, Coun Shah Hussain, said: “The fact the thieves wore burkhas to trick their way into the store makes this crime even more despicable.”

And community leaders in Burnley condemned the gang for using a burkha to con their way into the jewellers.

The court heard how the same gang also held up a couple aged 74 and 63 at their own home in the Fairfield Drive area of Burnley.

Prosecutor Charlotte Holland said one of them threatened to cut off the elderly woman’s hand if she did not remove treasured jewellery.

Another elderly couple, aged 85 and 77, were similarly attacked and robbed in their own home in the Ellesmere Road area of Bolton, by masked men carrying an axe and a hammer.

Atcha, of Burwell Close, Baber Khan, of Willows Lane, Kola, of Mancroft Avenue, and Mohammed Khan, of Jasmine Court, all Bolton, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob between February and May, 2011.