Hatton Garden accused Michael Seed 'involved in similar heist'

The vault wall at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit was drilled through over the 2015 Easter weekend

A suspect in the £14m Hatton Garden heist committed a similar burglary five years earlier, a court has heard.

Michael Seed, 58, denies being the sixth raider in what was claimed at the time to be the "the largest burglary in English legal history".

Mr Seed is alleged to be the man known as Basil who evaded arrest after his co-conspirators were caught.

Prosecutors said he was also involved in a burglary of a Bond Street jewellery store in 2010.

An estimated £13.7m of gold, cash and gems was taken from Hatton Garden Safe Deposit in London's diamond district over the 2015 Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

The raiders used an industrial drill to bore a hole through the vault wall.

Michael Seed denies two burglary charges

Five of the six men who were there on the night - Brian Reader, 79, John Collins, 78, Daniel Jones, 61, Carl Wood, 61, and Terry Perkins, who died last year aged 69 - were convicted of conspiring to carry out the burglary, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Philip Evans QC told the jury the sixth man was known as Basil "and the defendant, Michael Seed, is that man".

"Seed was involved in the burglary of Hatton Garden and the subsequent laundering of the proceeds," he added.

Some of the same crew had committed a "strikingly similar" burglary during the late August Bank Holiday weekend in 2010 when jewellery worth about £1m was stolen from the Chatila jewellery store in Bond Street, the court heard.

Jones pleaded guilty to the Chatila burglary, while Perkins died in prison before he could be tried.

Clockwise from top left Brian Reader, John Collins, Daniel Jones and Terry Perkins have already been convicted for their part in the heist

Charles Matthews, 55, was convicted earlier this year of receiving stolen goods from the Chatila raid.

"The prosecution alleges that this defendant, Mr Seed, was also a participant in that earlier 2010 burglary at Chatila," Mr Evans said.

Mr Seed, of Liverpool Road, Islington, north London, denies two charges of conspiracy to commit burglary and one charge of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property.

The trial continues.