Reading Crown Court: Kingsclere man in 'Mission Impossible' raid on Thatcham firm

A DISGRUNTLED ex-employee staged a Mission Impossible-style raid on the firm that laid him off.

A judge who jailed the serial offender described the scene as “like something out of a movie”.

Malcolm Keith Maylen hid himself in a disabled toilet at the Thatcham Research motor centre in Colthrop Way and waited until nightfall.

Then the 55-year-old, of Coppice Road, Kingsclere, avoided guards and bypassed the company security system by smashing a hole in the roof and climbing into the loft space above.

When he was directly over the chief executive’s office, he lowered himself inside with rope in a ploy reminiscent of actor Tom Cruise’s vault scene in the Mission Impossible blockbuster movie.

Grabbing a key from a cabinet, he used it to open a safe, from which he stole £8,092 in cash.

Maylen then opened a window and abseiled down to freedom, after securing the rope to an office chair.

The court heard that Maylen was trapped after detectives found traces of his DNA on the escape rope he left dangling, and a shoeprint left at the scene matched his trainers.

Maylen admitted burgling the centre on January 7, 2019.

He has previous convictions for burglary, both domestic and non domestic, a racially aggravated public order offence, shoplifting and other theft.

Emma Hornby, for Maylen, said her client had been suffering financial hardship since he lost his brother – who was also his employer – some time previously.

She added that Maylen regretted his actions but, when she claimed that he had thrown the money away because the bulk of it was in foreign currency, Judge Emma Nott told Maylen: “I find that a risible suggestion. I’m sure you were able to convert it in one way or another.”

Ms Hornby pleaded with the court to suspend any sentence of imprisonment and pointed out that Maylen would lose his accommodation if he was sent straight to prison.

She said Maylen rejected a suggestion in a pre-sentence report that he had targeted his former employers because he felt bitter about being laid off.

Judge Nott told him: “You made a plan.

“You knew what you were doing and you knew where you were going – you went straight to the office where you knew the key to the safe was.

“You took a rope with you and made good your escape, like something out of a movie.”

Jailing Maylen for two years, she said half would be spent in custody and the remainder on licence in the community.

Maylen was also ordered to pay a statutory victim services surcharge upon his release.