Video: Ram-raid on cash machine was ‘outlandish in the extreme’

The five men, from the north east and Lancashire, were sentenced after admitting conspiring to steal thousands of pounds from the Co-op store in Kirkbymoorside in July 2013.

This daring early-morning theft was caught on security cameras at the town’s Co-op. The five men escaped with thousands of pounds but were caught after what a court heard was “brilliant” police work.

Detectives from North Yorkshire Police were able to link phone records, DNA from discarded cigarettes, finger prints, footprints and clothing to the suspects, along with suspicious activity and vehicle movements at a nearby camp site where the men had gathered before and after the incident.

Detective Constable Clair Gascoyne of the Scarborough Serious Crime Team, who led the investigation, said: “It was outlandish in the extreme the way this criminal gang conspired to smash their way into the shop using a stolen tele-handler and then rip out the cash machine containing thousands of pounds.

“No matter how well they thought they had planned ‘the job’ with the aim of getting away with it, the suspects clearly hadn’t reckoned on North Yorkshire Police’s sheer determination to hunt them down and our aim to put them behind bars for a very long time.

“It was certainly a complex investigation that was painstaking at times while establishing the evidence and building the case, but the end result is very satisfying and we hope the victims will gain some comfort from the outcome at court.”

John Henry Corrigan, 28, from Broome Road, Durham; Jason Mawson, 45, from Grey Street, Crook, County Durham; Paul George Wilson, 49, from Low Moor Road, Darlington, Stefan James Hargreaves, 26, of Stanley Road, Heysham, Lancashire; Adam Palmer, 21, Sefton Road, Heysham, Lancashire, were jailed at Teesside Crown Court.

Corrigan was imprisoned for 43 months, Mawson for 40 months, Wilson for 45 months, Hargreaves for 42 months and Palmer for 36 months.