Gang fled with £1m after ramming cash van with tractor

THE Slade gang got away with more than a million pounds in a successful and dramatic raid on a security van after it was rammed at the rear with a tractor.

The crew of the Securitas van were travelling from Merseyside to their depot near Warrington on March 8, 2006 when the robbers struck.

After leaving the M6 the two crew on board, Noel Newby and Charles Smithurst, pulled up at a give way junction behind a Volvo flatback low-loader lorry unaware that they had driven into a trap.

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With the loader preventing them moving forward, the van was suddenly rammed from behind, the loader arms attached to a tractor slamming into the rear door and allowed partial access.

The van was carrying 1.4m and the robbers managed to get just over 1m out before fleeing in a stolen car.

About a mile away a witness saw men moving bags from a Volvo car into an Audi estate.

Attempts were made to burn out the Volvo but they were only partially successful. It had been stolen 10 months earlier in Leeds and in the period in between had done only 300 miles.

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The gang often stole high-powered vehicles which they kept in convenient premises for use in raids when needed.

The loader and the tractor, which were abandoned at the scene, had both been stolen to order from Wilberfoss, near York, especially for the robbery.

The tractor had only been delivered at 4.30pm the day before the Securitas robbery, but within five hours of its arrival it and the loader had both been stolen. They were not spotted again until they appeared during the robbery.

The raid demonstrated the kind of detailed planning undertaken by the gang because the width of the arms on the tractor taken, which usually had a bucket or some other attachment, corresponded exactly with the width of the door which was repeatedly rammed on the security van.

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