A FORMER Team GB boxer has escaped jail after he helped mastermind a nationwide black market racket in stolen telecoms equipment which cost BT almost £400,000.

Ex-lightweight professional Antonio Counihan, 33, broke into Openreach vans to steal fibre optic installation kit after becoming a cable fitter when his career in the ring foundered and he ran up gambling debts of £25,000.

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Counihan and an accomplice used hi viz jackets and hardhats to pose as a workmen at secure BT exchange sites before clambering on top of the vans and using cutting equipment to ”peel back” the rooves.

They also used their expertise in telecoms to identify the most expensive items inside before looting the vehicles.

The stolen equipment was then fenced by a crooked businessman who used his fibre optics business as a front to sell them on.

Counihan, from Sollihull, near Birmingham who won 66 of his 80 amateur fights before boxing for England over 20 times was arrested after police attributed 34 thefts to the gang carried out across eight counties over a nine month period from May 2019 to January 2020.

In all equipment worth £113,192 was stolen whilst £149,561 of damage was caused to the vans.

BT calculated the racket had cost it £390,627 including lost business caused by the thefts.

In two cases three Openreach vans were targeted in a single night.

At Warwick Crown Court, father of one Counihan faced up to six years jail under sentencing guidelines but was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months after a judge was told of a ”heart wrenching” end to his promising boxing career when he had undergo tests for brain cancer.

Details of the case emerged at the Court of Appeal this week where three judges dismissed pleas by the Solicitor General that the suspended sentence imposed on upon Counihan was ”unduly lenient.”

Three other men who has also got suspended sentences for their parts in the racket also had appeals against their terms rejected.

Counihan joined the Team GB boxing squad in 2009 and at one point was captain but he turned pro after narrowly missing out on a place in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

He was signed up by boxing manager Kelly Maloney then known as Frank but his career began to decline after a ‘shadow’ was discovered on his brain.

He was unable to box competitively for three years and underwent a series of scans before doctors discovered the shadow was in fact a birth mark.

The theft racket began in 2019 after Counihan got a job as a cable fitter for a fibre optic installation subcontracting business run by 35-year old Michael George and which was used by BT on outsourced jobs.

The court heard the gang ”had specialist knowledge of the operational workings of BT and of the high demand on the black market for the specialist fibre optic installation equipment.”

They would target BT Openreach vans parked overnight and cut holes into the rooves with metal cutters.

Initially a small hole would be cut into the roof to allow the contents of the van to be viewed and if If high-value fibre optic kit was seen inside, a larger hole was then made by cutting through and peeling back a section of the roof.

The gang started their criminal enterprise in the West Midlands but their activities spread into Warwickshire, West Mercia, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset and Essex.

In one raid the gang stole a splicing machine worth £2225, an optical time-domain reflectometer worth £2400, a red light generator worth £135, a light source worth £564, a fibre cleaver worth £225; hand tools worth £450; and a labelling machine worth £23.

A fibre blowing head worth £1,480 was damaged in the raid.

Counihan received £2,100 into his bank account juts a day after one of the raids and went on spending spree buying designer clothing.

Police began investigating after an off duty BT employee took a picture of him driving the gang’s getaway vehicle.

They examined text messages he swapped with an accomplice discussing “doing a peel”, meaning going to steal, wearing of high viz jackets and hard hats so they could ”blend in” during one of the raids.

They also discussed needing “new snips” after metal cutters they used were discarded during a previous raid.

There were also messages where items were requested, and plans formed to steal to order.

Counihan sent messages to an associate asking if he wanted a splicer, and discussing fibre optic equipment that was available to purchase.

He then sent screenshots stating that he had been “putting feelers out”.

When arrested in June 2020, Couniham initially denied wrongdoing.

He later said he participated as a driver and lookout during some of the raids and was only involved in the sale of property stolen in one.

He accepted he received “a few hundred pounds on average.”

Counihan later wrote a letter to the court describing how he had risen to be part of the Great Britain Team as a boxer, backed by lottery funding, and he went into schools to inspire other children to take up boxing.

He had decided to turn professional after narrowly missing out on the 2012 Olympics and won his first 8 fights as a professional before the shadow was identified on his brain.

He said he no longer able to carry on boxing and his life ”became a complete mess.”

He said he was in a ”bad place” when joined the gang.

Sentencing Judge Anthony Potter said the racket was a “brutal and highly effective nationwide conspiracy” but cited delays in the case of two and a half years which had allowed Counihan to ”turn his life around.”

The judge accepted at the time of the racket Counihan had been “processing the loss of a career that you pursued for most of your childhood and into your adulthood” but said he had since undergone a ”significant change” after fathering a son.

George, from Birmingham was given 21 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

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