LONDON: 'Basil' in court charged with involvement in audacious Hatton Garden burglary

Met Police image of the hole drilled through concrete wall to get to safety deposit boxes

A MAN accused of being the last suspect in the Hatton Garden safety deposit box heist has appeared in court.

Michael Seed, 57, from North London, today appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates Court charged with conspiracy to burgle and conspiracy to conceal or disguise criminal property.

He was arrested in a flat on the Mersey Estate in Islington on Tuesday, March 27, and has been remanded in custody.

Prosecutor Philip Stott said: "The charges relate to the burglary of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company over Easter weekend in 2015."

Seed was described by his barrister, James Reilly, as a jeweller who "fashions jewellery." Mr Reilly indicated Seed, who is understood to have studied sciences at the University of Nottingham, would deny the offences.

Inside the vault where the safety deposit boxes were targeted

There was no application for bail and chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot remanded him in custody.

Since the 2015 raid and subsequent prosecutions of several other men involved in the burglary, Met Police detectives have been hunting a mysterious suspect known only as "Basil" who was captured on CCTV during the job described as one of the most audacious in British criminal history.

Seed's father was reportedly biophysicist John Seed who did a PhD at Christ Church, Cambridge and published many papers on DNA in the 1960s.

His 90-year-old mother still lives in Cambridge.

He has three siblings and an aunt Kathleen Seed, 83, in Nottingham.

She said: "The thought of Michael being a bank robber is so remote, I would find that so highly unlikely."