Caravan park crime boss ‘Jimmy’ Sheen was branded an ‘intimidating’ career criminal on national TV show Crimewatch.
Detective chief inspector Aidan Donohoe dismissed the now 39-year-old as he spoke to the BBC programme about the investigation that brought Sheen’s heist gang to justice.
Sheen and five members of his Kidlington-based group were jailed for 74 years at Oxford Crown Court in 2022.
This was for an array of offences ranging from using gas to blow up cash machines in the Home Counties to stealing £400,000 worth of tractors in a night and raiding the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket.
You can read our background story about how police brought the gang to justice here.
Now based at Thames Valley Police’s headquarters, Mr Donohoe was a senior detective in Oxfordshire Criminal Investigation Department (CID) when he led what became known as Operation Jackknife.
“He has absolutely no compunction in committing any sort of crime,” the cop said of Sheen.
“He’s quite intimidating and threatening to people who get in his way.
“Sheen is not someone you would want to cross.”
Mr Donohoe added: “Jimmy Sheen is a career criminal and we’re talking about an individual that previously served a prison sentence for discharging a firearm in a public place and injuring people.”
That drive-by shooting took place in December 2009, when Sheen and his brother John were loosing a shotgun out the window of their Range Rover in a feud against a rival family that had its origins in a shattered romance.
The Sheens were chasing an Audi A8 being driven through Coventry by a Reuben Reed and son George.
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The latter had formed a relationship with John Sheen’s ex-partner, later marrying her while Sheen was serving a five-and-a-half year jail sentence for stealing vehicles.
While chasing the Reeds through Coventry, an innocent motorist and her passenger were caught in the crossfire – and peppered by shot from the Sheens’ firearm.
The brothers were each handed 14 years’ imprisonment by a High Court judge, sentencing them at Birmingham Crown Court.
It was while out of prison on licence that Jimmy Sheen formed the gang that targeted ATMs across the Home Counties, firstly by blowing them up with gas before moving on to dragging them out of chain stores like the Co-op using high-powered 4x4s.
Earlier this year, a judge at Oxford Crown Court ruled that Sheen made £903,000 as a result of his criminal activities.
Jimmy Loveridge, who was brought into the gang as ‘muscle, was ruled to have benefitted from his offending to the tune of £917,000.
Sheen’s ‘trusted lieutenant’ David Riley, who was also the go-between when the group needed to sell on tractors stolen in three raids in May 2020, made more than £790,000.
But in March, confiscation orders were made against each man under Proceeds of Crime Act rules requiring them to pay a nominal sum of just £1.
It reflected the fact that, as they are currently serving prisoners, the men had no assets that could be sold and the proceeds handed over to the Treasury.
Lawyers could apply to the court if, in the future, it emerges the men have assets to confiscate.
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