An airport supervisor has walked free from court after being cleared of passing security data to a gang of raiders who carried out a £1.1 million heist at Gatwick.

Cargo hold staff loaded 13 bags of HSBC cash into a bogus Brink's security van when a uniformed thief flashed the correct documentation and drove off with the money.

The prosecution had alleged Keith Rayment, of Pride View, Stone Cross, near Eastbourne, tipped off members of the Peacock Gang to the incoming delivery and provided the information needed to bypass airport security.

But yesterday, jurors at Southwark Crown Court took three hours to unanimously agree the 29-year-old was innocent.

Rayment was cleared of obtaining property by deception.

The airport worker told the court he did not even have access to the crucial "freight forwarding message" system of incoming deliveries.

The Securicor worker said: "I was not the Gatwick insider. I wasn't part of any conspiracy to steal money from Gatwick airport whatsoever.

"The only paperwork we would receive would be a computer-generated release note which is provided by reception."

Flying Squad officers arrested two thieves at 3.10am on March 27 last year as they left the airport in a Ford Transit.

Detectives had been keeping the gang under surveillance and bugged their telephone calls.

The Peacock Gang earned its name because they used the Peacock Gym in east London to plan a series of raids.

They made off with £83,000-worth of Hinari food blenders and Goodmans stereo systems destined for sale in Rugby on November 22, 2002.

The goods were taken from Thamesport, on the Isle of Grain in Kent, then driven to MDS Storage in Wickford, Essex.

The gang next organised the collection of two container units storing £500,000 of Absolut vodka from docks at Grangemouth, Scotland, on January 17 last year.

Police arrested the drivers of the articulated lorries the following day when they had driven the cargo as far as Enfield, north London.

The crooks also took container units of adhesive tape from Felixstowe docks on February 12 last year.

The sticky tape was again driven to the Wickford storage facility before being sold at market stalls in east London.

The gang executed a final heist of £83,000-worth of Chinese Justart electric scooters on April 11 last year, after the Gatwick raid.

The 462 scooters were driven from the yard at Felixstowe docks to a warehouse in east London.

Peacock Gang members are due to be sentenced on October 14. Two truck drivers involved in the Isle of Grain raid in November 2002 will be sentenced on August 31.