Wirral Cash Machine Gang Jailed

10 June 2013, 15:00

Members of a highly organised gang put behind bars for more than 20 years

Liverpool Crown Court has heard how the team of seven men had carried out raids on local cash machines, but also traveling further afield to North Wales, Stafford, Derbyshire and Worcestershire, during a six month period in 2012.

The court was told how the men had a sophisticated method by deactivating alarm sensors during the day and returning at night with angle grinders to break into ATMs. A total of ten incidents took place over about six months ending in February last year.

The largest sum was £103,000 seized by the gang at Tesco Express in Evesham in October 2011 and the following January, Terence Doughty, one of the two "guiding minds", and Craig Brennan broke into the Arriva Bus depot in Rhyl and stole the cash vault and cash box containing about £9,500 and causing almost £20,000 worth of damage.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the third successful raid took place at a convenience store in Preston the following month when Doughty, fellow ringleader Anthony Edwards-Sutton, Craig Brennan, Les McStein and Gary Carey, used heavy duty power saws to get in through the roof. They stole just under £8,000 from the ATM.

Members of the group were involved in six other unsuccessful raids.

Doughty, 34, of Deakin Street, Birkenhead and his right-hand man Edwards Sutton, 32, of Oakwood Park, Birkenhead, proprietor of Wirral Tyres, were each jailed for four years.

Craig Brennan, 28, of Hampton Chase, Prenton, who like Edwards Sutton was also involved in six raids, received three and a half years. McStein, 30, of Oxford Road, Wallasey, who was involved in five raids, was jailed for three years.

Kevin O’Loughlin, 36, of Canterbury Road, Wallasey, involved in four raids, is currently serving a prison sentence for similar ATM attacks and Judge Teague sentenced him to 21 months to run consecutively, making a total of three and a half years.

Gary Carey, 36, of Gorseburn Road, Tuebrook, who met the gang while in prison, was jailed for three years nine months,

Brennan's brother, Kevin Brennan, 29, of Falklands Street, Birkenhead, who acted as a getaway driver after an unsuccessful raid at the Co-operative store in Noctorum Avenue, Prenton on February 16, was sentenced to eight months imprisonment.

They had all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and Carey also admitted stealing £13,000 from a cash machine at a newsagents in Bristol in March 2011.