Graphic: from robbery to life in jail

Emerging into the crisp January night air, Thomas ap Rhys Pryce patted his inside pocket, checking that he still had his list of wedding venues after an evening entertaining clients at a City bar.

As the 31-year-old litigation lawyer walked past the grand facade of the Bank of England, he telephoned Adele Eastman, his fiancée, to say that he was hurrying home.

It was shortly before 11pm and the Cambridge graduate had nursed just a few pints in the Cock and Woolpack bar, in Finch Lane, which was crammed with City traders.

Four miles away in the Old Bell, on the rundown Kilburn High Road, Donnel Carty and Delano Brown downed their final pints, pulled up their hoods and stepped outside to begin their night’s work.

Mr ap Rhys Pryce’s London was one that valued hard work and ambition, aspiration and achievement. Carty and Brown’s London revolved around the night-time streets where the isolated and vulnerable could be terrorised at knifepoint for their valuables.

All three men lived within a few streets of each other and on January 12 their very different worlds collided.

Carty and Brown, both from broken homes, were part of the Kensal Green Tribe, a gang of up to nine hoodies who marauded through Tube carriages robbing passengers. They called it “steaming”. Those who resisted were “juked”, slang for stabbing someone in the leg.

By Christmas last year the gang had carried out 40 robberies on both men and women in just one month. Over seven months they preyed on to up to 150 victims: at the peak of their activities they were responsible for up to 15 robberies a day.

One victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told for the first time how during one of the gang’s must brutal raids they stormed his carriage shouting: “Empty your pockets.” He said: “I had no intention of giving them anything. I was pushing them away. I saw one of them take a knife out and he plunged it into my left thigh. I was very frightened because a lot of blood was flowing from my leg.” The gang escaped with £50.

Another passenger said: “They began hitting me. I stood up and I got into a fight with them. I think I hit one with my pen.”

When stabbed in the thigh he handed over his wallet.

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