'Minnie Mouse was his ultimate downfall': Armed thief who raided Dudley convenience store caught by his Disney gloves
An armed thief who threatened staff in a Dudley convenience store with a metal bar before stealing £3,700 worth of spirits and cigarettes has been jailed after he was linked to the crime by his Minnie Mouse gloves.
CCTV of the raid also showed that Shane Hadlington - who wore a motorbike helmet during the raid - had a severe limp and distinctive tattoo of the word 'DAD' on his right wrist.
It emerged that just four days prior to the robbery, a police officer had seen the 27-year-old in a wheelchair and he told them he had fallen off his motorbike.
Searches on Facebook then revealed that he also had a 'DAD' tattoo on his wrist, identical to that of the offender from the One Stop Shop in Bourne Street.
Following the raid on August 15 police raided Hadlington's last known address in the Lower Gornal area of Dudley but he wasn't there.
During a search they found the incriminating Minnie Mouse gloves, a two tone duvet similar to that used as a swag bag in the robbery and tracksuit bottoms identical to those worn by one of the offenders.
When the search for Hadlington went cold, his photograph was published on the West Midlands Police website as 'wanted' and circulated across social media.
In October 2015 he was finally arrested at a café in Kingswinford after being spotted by a Police Community Support Officer who was on routine patrol.
He was later charged with robbery.
He denied the offence but at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday he was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to six years in prison.
Another man raided the shop along with Hadlington, but he has never been been identified.
Sergeant Sean Corrigan, from Dudley Police, said: "This was a terrifying robbery for the staff involved and I'm glad we were able to track down one of the main offenders and secure this lengthy jail term at court.
"After starting with just the limp, we soon racked up a whole package of overwhelming evidence against Hadlington including the tattoo, the duvet and the tracksuit bottoms, with Minnie Mouse being his ultimate downfall.
"By that point we'd pretty much built the whole case and then it was simply a matter of trying to find him. Thanks to an observant PCSO on the ground it didn't take very long and we've now been able to take a dangerous offender off the streets."
