An armed robber who dated a Towie star has been ordered to pay back just £25 to a mother and daughter who he tied up and threatened to kill in a terrifying £220,000 Sandbanks mansion raid.
Career criminal Aaron Evans, also known as Kirk Holdrick, and his accomplice Ashley Fulton held both Kerry and Emily Aitchison at gunpoint during the horrifying incident at their luxury £2.5million Poole harbour home in February 2023.
In 2022, Evans went on a string of dates with former The Only Way is Essex Star Hannah Voyan, who was axed from the show after debuting in its 30th series.
The couple were seen publicly holding hands while leaving a restaurant in Mayfair, London, alongside other Towie co-stars including Chloe Brockett.
Now, it has been revealed that Evans will have to pay a mere £25 in compensation to the traumatised Aitchison family due to having limited funds left from the £221,348 made by the pair from their heinous crime.
During the petrifying raid, Evans and Fulton tied up Mrs Aitchison and threatened to burn Emily, 22, with an iron and shoot her mother in front of her if she didn’t open the safe.
But brave Mrs Aitchison, 55, called the two thieves ‘scum of the earth’ and refused to give them the code.
In just 30 minutes, the pair ransacked the property, fleeing with £220K worth of stolen luxury goods, including a unique Patek Phillipe watch. While they were never recovered, the pair made a catalogue of errors that eventually led police to their door.
Career criminal Aaron Evans (pictured), also known as Kirk Holdrick, and his accomplice Ashley Fulton held both Kerry and Emily Aitchison at gunpoint during the horrifying incident at their luxury £2.5million Poole harbour home in February 2023
In 2022, Evans went on a string of dates with The Only Way is Essex Star Hannah Voyan. The couple (pictured) were seen publicly holding hands while leaving a restaurant in Mayfair, London, alongside other Towie co-stars including Chloe Brockett
During the petrifying raid, Evans and Fulton tied up Mrs Aitchison and threatened to burn Emily (pictured), 22, with an iron and shoot her mother in front of her if she didn’t open the safe. Emily bravely entered the code wrong twice
But Evans, 43, has just £26.66 to pay as compensation to the Aitchison family while Fulton, also 43, has £4,156, a hearing at Bournemouth Crown Court has heard.
While the courts can only seize available assets from convicted criminals, the Crown Prosecution Service can revisit the order if either Evans or Fulton come into additional money in the future.
On February 21, 2023, the career criminals deliberately targeted the home of Mark Aitchison, the chief executive officer of Colten Care, which owns 21 care homes in the south of England.
His wife Kerry, a personal trainer and physio, was the only one home when the pair knocked at around 1pm.
To gain entry to the home in an exclusive cul-de-sac the pair posed as police officers investigating a rape.
Then, after the door was answered, they barged their way in and bound Mrs Aitchison with cable ties and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give them the code to the safe.
Around half an hour later, the pair seemed ‘on the cusp of leaving’ when daughter Emily, an estate agent, came home on her lunch break.
One of the men held a gun to her head, dragged her by the hair and threatened to shoot her and burn her with an iron.
Now, it has been revealed that Evans will have to pay a mere £25 in compensation to the traumatised Aitchison family. The pair made a collective total of £221,348 from their heinous crime. Pictured: The Aitchison family leaving Bournemouth Crown Court in September, 2024
Mobile phone records later showed Fulton (pictured) had Googled the exact rare model of Patek Philippe watch they had stolen two hours after the heist. Police also found online orders made by Fulton for police ID wallets and lanyards the pair used to trick their way into the home
Emily bravely entered the code wrong twice and then told them if she did it wrong a third time it would trigger the alarm.
The panicked robbers eventually fled the scene and Emily was able to run to a neighbour’s house to raise the alarm and then cut her mother free.
The pair were eventually caught after their DNA was found all over the property and the get away car, registered to Fulton’s address, was discovered on CCTV.
Mobile phone records later showed Fulton had Googled the exact rare model of Patek Philippe watch they had stolen two hours after the heist.
Police also found online orders made by Fulton for police ID wallets and lanyards the pair used to trick their way into the Aitchison home.
Evans had been given a life sentence for armed robberies in 2004. He had escaped from prison and carried out a gunpoint raid on a jewellery store in Essex two days later and then an armed robbery on a Securicor van.
Branded a ‘dangerous offender’ who posed a significant risk of harm to the public by a judge who bailed him at Bournemouth Crown Court, Evans was out of prison on licence at the time of the Sandbanks raid.
The court heard he had 22 previous convictions for 110 offences.
Pictured: Hannah Voyan and Evans in September 2022. Voyan was axed from the popular reality TV show after debuting in its 30th series
Fulton’s girlfriend Lacey Langton (pictured), from Wareham, Dorset, admitted perverting the course of justice and possessing an identity document with improper intent. The 23-year-old was jailed for 14 months for her part in the crime.
Evans was arrested at a ferry terminal in Birkenhead on April 18 with a Rolex watch and a fake passport. Fulton and his girlfriend Lacey Langton, were arrested by armed police at a Heathrow hotel on May 14.
In their room, police found thousands in cash, four mobile phones and a bag of watches and jewellery, none of which was connected to the robbery.
Outlining the negative impacts of the horrifying robbery on her emotionally, Mrs Aitchison previously told the court: ‘Home should feel a safe place, a sanctuary, a haven. For me it’s a crime scene where I thought myself and my daughter would be killed.
‘I am a mere shadow of my former self because of this violent intrusion. Gone is the positive, vibrant outgoing woman and in her place is someone I don’t recognise.’
Meanwhile, Judge William Mousley KC said that both Kerry and Emily Aitchison ‘were subjected to a terrifying ordeal’ that had left ‘severe psychological harm’.
Judge Mousley praised the mother and daughter for their ‘courageous’ personal statements which ‘powerfully expressed’ the impact the ordeal had on them.
To Evans, he said: ‘You are a dangerous offender, you pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public. Your previous offences and the facts of these offences, the high level of danger you impose, which will in my judgment remain indefinitely, all support the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment.
‘However I must consider the available alternatives.’
Pictured is an aerial view of Sandbanks, where the £2.5million home is located. In just 30 minutes, Evans and Fulton ransacked the property, fleeing with £220K worth of stolen luxury goods
During a previous hearing at Bournemouth Crown Court (pictured), Judge William Mousley KC said that both Kerry and Emily Aitchison ‘were subjected to a terrifying ordeal’ that had left ‘severe psychological harm’
James Hay, defending, insisted that Evans was ‘already serving a life sentence so the public can be adequately protected without the need to impose a second such sentence.’
In September last year, Evans pleaded guilty to two robberies, possession of an imitation firearm and one count of fraud for a false passport.
Judge Mousley decided a second life sentence for Evans’ role in the heist would not be appropriate but made an extended sentence of 16 years – 12 in custody and four years on licence.
Evans would need to go before a parole board before he could be released for the previous life sentence.
Meanwhile, Fulton admitted two counts of robbery, possession of an imitation firearm, three offences of fraud and three of possessing ID documents with improper intent, one of possession of an article for use in fraud and possession of cocaine.
He was handed a life sentence, with a minimum term of nine years and 192 days before he can be considered for parole.
Langton, from Wareham, Dorset, admitted perverting the course of justice and possessing an identity document with improper intent.
She picked up false ID documents for Fulton in his son’s name and was arrested with him at a Heathrow hotel in May last year.
The 23-year-old was jailed for 14 months for her part in the crime.
