A JURY has found a Swindon man guilty of conspiracy to burgle, after a break-in at Motorola by a gang responsible for plundering millions of pounds worth of computer equipment.

Masked raiders stole a £20,000 piece of computer kit from Motorola's Euro Way site after tying up a security guard last June, Swindon Crown Court heard.

Though seven men including another Swindon man pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to target businesses in the south west, two other men contested their involvement.

After a seven day trial the jury found both Arfan Khan, 25, of Ferndale Road, Swindon, and Martin Miller, 23, of Melfort Road, Peckham, London, guilty of conspiracy to burgle between December 19, 1999 and June 2, 2002. Both men were convicted after just under five hours, on majority verdicts of 11 to one.

Khan's defence counsel, Paul Bogan, told the judge his client had been "in trouble" on five previous occasions.

In December 1999 the Evening Advertiser reported how, aged 22, Arfan Khan was jailed for three-and-a-half years for wounding Highworth stock handler Nick Midwinter with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Then, Swindon Crown Court heard how Khan was part of a four-man gang that attacked 22-year-old Mr Midwinter in West Swindon in a case of mistaken identity.

And in 1997 he was given 200 hours' community service after he admitted aggravated taking of a vehicle without consent, failing to stop and report an accident and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

In the Motorola case, the court heard that on the night of May 31 last year officers from the National Crime Squad lay in wait while gang leader Gbenga Biobaku, 27, of Maida Vale, London, and gang member Jimmy Manuwa, 23, of Mitcham, Surrey, drove around Blagrove industrial park.

Arfan and Miller and fellow gang member Sajid Khan, 26, of Manchester Road, Swindon, acted as look-outs while fellow conspirators Andrew Gill, 31, of Bermondsey, London, and Wayne Spencer, 29, and Andrew Chiory, 27, both of no fixed address broke into the building.

As well as the Motorola break-in the conspiracy included a heist at Deutsche Bank in November 2000 and a burglary at the British Telecom base in Salisbury in February 2001. Nearly £2 million worth of equipment was stolen on both occasions.

Ordering pre-sentence reports, Judge Thomas Longbotham adjourned sentencing to tie in with their co-conspirators, on a date to be fixed, and remanded both men in custody.