The Man Who Wasn’t There: The Alleged Wrongful Conviction of Ashley Cumberpatch

Ashley Cumberpatch

In 2023, Ashley Cumberpatch, along with Kurtis Dilks and Andrew McDonald, were found guilty of conspiracy to burgle the Harley Gallery near Worksop. Ashley, along with being convicted of association, was sentenced to 24 years at Nottingham Crown Court: but his wife Liyana says Ashley wasn’t even there.

Kelly Duong, 35, was also part of a gang who stole a £3.5million Portland Tiara - worn by the Duchess of Portland at the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 - from an armoured glass display case at the gallery at Welbeck Estate, in 2018. Miss Duong was given a two-year suspended prison sentence. The jewels, worth an estimated £3.75 million, have not been recovered.

Prosecutors claim that 12 months earlier Duong had carried out a ‘reconnaissance mission’ on the gallery with Ashley, but Liyana says Duong was actually having an affair with co-defendant Kurtis Dilks at the time, and has the transcripts to prove it. Dilks had also been part of a four-strong gang found guilty of robbing the homes of ex-footballers Ashley Cole and former Derby County midfielder Tom Huddlestone.

A year later, a gang of masked raiders broke into the gallery. Armed with power tools, they cut through the glass display cabinet and stole the tiara and brooch. They were gone less than eight minutes later, but captured on CCTV. The prosecution claimed Ashley put Duong up to it, which is why she got only a two year sentence while his was 24 years; but Liyana says the affair with Dilks was either ignored or not taken into account.

The jewels were brought to Paris Jewels at Hatton Garden in London, just hours after the heist. They were passed to professional handlers Tevfik Guccuk and Sercan Evsin who were tasked with selling them. Detectives later raided the shop but were unable to recover the tiara and brooch. It is thought they were broken up into individual diamonds before being flown out to Turkey, within 24 hours. Guccuk and Evsin were also convicted of converting criminal property. All five men were sentenced to a combined total of more than 90 years.

Liyana and Ashley applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to have Ashley’s case referred to the Court of Appeal, but were turned down due to ‘bad character’ evidence, while ignoring the fact that Ashley’s solicitor was in fact defending two of the defendants - Duong and Ashley - at the same trial.

Liyana also says transcripts of the affair weren’t allowed to be released, even though Ashley had seen them. To add insult to injury Liyana says both she and her husband were aware they had been ‘stitched up’ even as the trial was underway, and that investigating officer Sally Webster also gave ‘misleading evidence’.

Liyana says that the jury in Ashley’s case was misled, and they convicted an innocent man based on no evidence but on an affair; that the judge refused to award Legal Aid; and people who were actually part of the heist were not sentenced.

As of 2025 Ashley Cumberpatch has served three years of a 24-year sentence for a crime at which both he and Liyana claim he wasn’t even present.

Liyana Cumberpatch spoke to Sean Bw Parker for Empowering The Innocent (ETI)

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