DRAMATIC CCTV footage shows the moment an armed gang brandishing a machete storm into a bank in a terrifying robbery — and the car crash in Ramsbottom which helped police track them down.
Now the six-strong criminal gang — one which included a security guard who acted as the 'inside man' — has been jailed after making off with more than £160,000 in violent cash-in-transit robberies targeting banks in Walkden and Ramsbottom.
They were jailed for a combined total of more than 75-years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery,
In total £168,000 was stolen in the robberies.
READ MORE: Little Hulton gang jailed after series of violent heists
The five from Little Hulton and the security guard were caught as a result of Operation Riptide a police investigation into a number of ATM robberies in Greater Manchester between September 2017 and April 2018.
The gang carried out an armed robbery at Santander Bank in Walkden on Thursday, September 7, 2017 at 1.10am. G4S employee, Thomas Keane, was restocking the ATM at the bank with his colleague when they were approached by three masked men and threatened with a sawn off shotgun, a handgun and a machete. The guards were forced to the floor, and the men made off with the stolen cash
Keane, the cash courier at first appeared to be a victim of the robbery but it emerged he had played a key role in the conspiracy by supplying information regarding cash delivery times and locations — and received a cut of the stolen cash.
The conspiracy began to unravel in the moments after the offenders robbed a cash-in-transit vehicle outside the Santander bank in Ramsbottom on April 3 last year.
The driver of the getaway car lost control fleeing the scene. The stolen red Ford Focus collided with a Range Rover and into parked cars on Bolton Street West.
The offenders were forced to flee on foot.
Two of the offenders were seen hiding under a parked car and fingerprints on this vehicle were identified as belonging to Lucas Dodd and David Oxton.
The remainder of the group, Jack Pennington, Neil Callaghan and Scott Holmes, were identified by CCTV footage and other evidence.
Keane, 52, of Green Lane, Leigh was sentenced to 20 years, Pennington, 28, of Kenyon Way, Little Hulton was sentenced to 14 years for conspiracy to commit robbery and Oxton, 34, of Longshaw Drive, Little Hulton was sentenced to 14 years — all three for conspiracy to commit robbery.
Callaghan, 35, of New Lester Way, Little Hulton was sentenced to 12 and a half years for conspiracy to commit robbery and given a further 12 months for an unrelated blackmail offence. Holmes, 32, of Cleggs Lane, Little Hulton has been sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit robbery. Dodd, 19, of Dovecote Lane, Little Hulton was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit robbery.
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