Caught on camera: Robber threatens cashier with hammer
Masks covering their faces and a sledgehammer raised high above their heads, this is the dramatic moment a gang of armed raiders burst into a Black Country petrol station demanding cash and cigarettes.
The terrifying raid was one of 23 robberies across Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Wombourne and Dudley.
This footage, take at the Tesco petrol station in West Bromwich, was released by police after Gavin Reilly and Michael Scanlon were each jailed for 11 years for conspiring to commit the robberies at a total of 21 convenience stores.
Scanlon, aged 34, of Rocket Pool Drive, Bilston, and Reilly, also 34, formerly of Tipton Road, Sedgley, had both denied conspiracy to commit the crimes. However they were jailed after being convicted at the end of a trial which lasted 24 days.
A third member of the gang, 44-year-old Alan Brookes, of Princip Street, Aston, Birmingham, had already been jailed for four years and eight months in March this year after pleading guilty to a single count of robbery.
The gang, which may have had other members, began their crime spree at the One Stop Shop in Middleway Green, Bilston, on September 27 and continued until January 4.
They usually targeted convenience stores or petrol stations late at night, when staffing levels would be light and the tills likely to be full. They would rush into the premises brandishing weapons, including hammers and axes, and headed straight for the counter to snatch cigarettes and cash.
The robbery at Tesco filling station in Congregation Way, West Bromwich, was the gang's 18th raid, taking place just after 11pm on December 7. They made their getaway in a distinctive white and black Audi A3, which was used in several of the robberies. Just two days earlier, Scanlon and Reilly had been caught on CCTV with the same car, although on that day no robbery took place.
Reilly's mobile phone was left behind at another one of the stores after a shopkeeper managed to fight the robbers off.
