West Midlands Police brought down a violent robbery gang with a little help from the Tooth Fairy! Four of the gang have received hefty jail sentences at Birmingham Crown Court today (Wednesday 24th June), with a fifth being handed additional years to an existing stretch.
The five-strong gang – led by father and son crooks Nick and Corey Rothero – struck at homes, shops, pubs and a bingo hall across the West Midlands between October 2018 and February 2019.
Crime spree
Their victims came face-to-face with masked raiders armed with guns, machetes and knives and many later revealed they feared for their lives.
On 18th October 2018, the Rotheros – along with family member Aaron Jones and Darren Sadler – held up a One Stop shop in Bristol Road South, Northfield with knives, forcing staff to open a cash machine.
Three more One Stop stores were raided– at Vicarage Road and Broad Lane in Kings Heath and Castle Road West in Oldbury – before the gang went on to grab takings at the Barnt Green Inn after punching a staff member on 5th November 2018.
Staff at the EE shop in Northfield high street were threatened on 2 December, the gang loading £60,000 worth of mobiles into a builder’s sack.
Two weeks later a cash drawer was taken after staff were threatened in front of customers at Buzz Bingo in Rubery.
On 22nd January 2019 plain clothes officers on duty nearby rushed to the scene of a robbery at Carphone Warehouse in Longbridge town centre, where the gang had bagged £40,000 worth of mobile phones. Aided by members of the public, the officers managed to arrest Sadler who was waiting at the wheel of their getaway car, stolen eight days earlier in Halesowen.
The other three fled – one of them encouraging an armed accomplice to “f***ing stab them” .
The gang recruited Tyler Greenway to fill the void left by Sadler’s capture.
They went on to commit five home invasions – two in Halesowen plus others in Alvechurch, Barnt Green and Bromsgrove.
On 8th March they carried out an attack on security guards as they arrived to fill up an ATM machine at Tesco in Frankley Beeches Road, Northfield.
On that occasion they threatened to shoot the guards – with Nicky Rothero cocking his pistol several times and warning “I’m not joking” – before they made off with two cash boxes.
A Facebook message we subsequently found revealed Rothero Snr was asked “they get away with much”? He typed back “loads I think… was filling the cash machine so about 80 grand”.
Disappointingly for them, they later realised they’d made off with two empty containers.
The gang committed what turned out to be their final robbery – at a rural barn conversion in Stoney Lane, Bromsgrove, on 4 April – when a family was confronted by Jones armed with a sawn-off shotgun.
Arrests and evidence
Police arrested the Rotheros alongside accomplices Aaron Jones and Tyler Greenway from a stolen VW Golf on 11th April the day after a burglary in Clent.
A jewellery box was found in the Golf’s passenger door pocket which contained letters written by the victim’s children to the Tooth Fairy – and when examined returned a fingerprint hit to 19-year-old Corey Rothero.
Following the arrests police executed warrants at the homes of both Rotheros.
Police found nine designer watches – including Armani and Tissot – in Nicky’s bedroom drawers plus a decoder key used to steal vehicles, and a hunting knife used in several of the robberies.
And at Rothero junior’s home, officers recovered receipts in his name for pawned jewellery, including cash payments of £449 and £1,100 for two gold rings and another for £1,500. Balaclavas were also seized from his home.
Sentenced
Four men have now been handed long jail terms today (24th June) at Birmingham Crown Court for conspiracy to rob, burgle and steal.
They had admitted conspiracy to burgle and steal but denied involvement in the robberies. However, a jury found them guilty them following a seven-week trial.
- Nicky Rothero (35) from Longbridge: jailed for 24 years
- Corey Rothero (19) from Northfield: jailed for 15 years
- Aaron Jones (28) from Northfield (half-brother of Nicky Rothero and uncle to Corey) jailed for 27 years
- Tyler Greenway (19) from Northfield, jailed for 15 years
Darren Sadler (41) from Bartley Green, had already been jailed for 10 years eight months having been caught during the Longbridge phone shop robbery. He was given an extra four years after admitting his role in six other commercial robberies.
Investigating officer, Detective Constable Dan Halford from West Midlands Police’s Force Priorities Team, said: “This was a ruthless band of men driven by greed. They used extreme violence to rob commercial premises and residential homes, assaulting victims and threatening to use knives and firearms.
“They struck at family homes, ones they suspected were affluent, at times when people were sitting down to dinner or caring for children. Their actions caused immeasurable distress to the victims and their families.
“We identified the group through forensic evidence we found DNA at some attacked premises – and extensive analysis of phone communication.
“We’ve taken some very dangerous men off the streets and they have rightly been jailed for a long period of time.”
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