Caught on camera: Woman pushed to floor in armed robbery drama

The shocking image was released by police as they today lifted the lid on the operation that saw two men - one from Dudley and other from Sandwell - jailed for the robbery at Wheatland Service Station in Much Wenlock.

The men burst into the garage, armed with a hammer and terrifying staff. One female worker was left with a broken arm.

Sergeant Chris Haslam of West Mercia Police explained how they managed to put the attackers behind bars – despite initially only having circumstantial evidence.

The attackers, Ashley Fay, aged 26, of Hillside Road, Pensnett and Stephen Dale, 36, of Bernard Road, Tipton, were part of a trio who burst into the petrol station shortly before 10pm on September 27, 2014.

They were masked, Fay was brandishing a hammer and he left one woman with a broken arm after she was pushed to the floor when trying to escape while fearing for her life.

Sergeant Haslam, who took over the case about three days after the crime, said that despite CCTV and witness statements officers had nothing to directly lead them towards those responsible.

He said: "Part of the problem with this was the CCTV just showed three masked people committing a robbery and making off in a car we could not identify. So it was a lot of intelligence work just to find out what the vehicle may have been and who the people may have been.

"At that point it was all circumstantial. There were no witnesses who can say that they have seen these people at the robbery, there is no DNA or finger prints that have been taken from the scene of the robbery. There are no CCTV images of the faces of these people so there is still no direct evidence which makes it difficult to get a conviction."

The first breakthrough in the case was the discovery of an abandoned silver VW Golf.

A search of the car revealed a black roll of bin bags, and more importantly what was described as a "very distinctive yellow glove", similar to one worn by the robbers in CCTV footage.

Sergeant Haslam said: "What we had at that point was testimony from the victims, CCTV showing a robbery and a vehicle found in the West Midlands which may or may not have been involved.

"What that gives us then was a line of inquiry in terms of the car."

Both the glove and the bin bags were sent for testing and investigations then revealed that the car, which had earlier been stolen, had made off from a petrol station in the Willenhall area without paying at around 7pm on the evening of the robbery.

Sergeant Haslam revealed that they were left frustrated when they found that the camera recording CCTV footage at the garage had been at the wrong angle and had only recorded the man filling up the car from the waist down.

He said: "You can imagine that was very frustrating. Just for the sake of the camera being a little higher up you could see the face of that person."

The next piece of the jigsaw came when investigations revealed that an automatic number plate recognition camera in Bridgnorth had picked up the same car travelling towards Much Wenlock at around 8.30pm.

Fingerprint analysis of the black bin bags then revealed that they had been handled by Dale.

Inquiries with the force's burglary department provided a number of Dale's associates whose names were passed to the laboratory and tested against the DNA on the glove - revealing a match with Ashley Fay.

Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place when West Mercia Police contacted their colleagues in North Wales, who arrested Dale on other matters and seized his telephone.

Police were then given permission to check the area in which the phone had been used - revealing it had been in the Bridgnorth area close to the time of the robbery. Similar investigations also revealed that Fay's phone had been in the area as well.

Police made the decision to move and arrest the suspects and on December 3, 2014, arrested Dale at his home in Tipton.

The work, resulted in the Fay being sentenced to 59 months in jail, and Dale to 44 months.