This is the shocking moment a cash machine containing more than £10,000 went flying through the air after three raiders used a tow rope to rip it out of a university building.
The group of burglars made off with thousands of pounds after fixing a tow rope from their 4x4 to the dispenser, freeing the loot from the machine and flinging it several feet into the air.
The whole raid at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich was recorded by Norfolk Constabulary after a tip-off that the three men - including a father and son - were planning to strike.
John Eli Loveridge, 38, his son John Stanley Loveridge, 19, and Leonard Smith, 34, thought they had got away with it until police caught up with them, ramming one of the suspects’ getaway vehicles.
The men were jailed for a total of 14 years after they had been involved in a string of burglaries.
Detective Sergeant Richard Dickinson, from Norwich CID, said: ‘This was a challenging and lengthy investigation culminating in a successful covert operation which led to the arrest of the suspects.
‘We carried out a number of complex lines of inquiry to show their involvement in other crimes and this work ultimately led to the suspects entering guilty pleas.
‘This was an organised gang who were prepared to burgle houses and steal cars in order to commit further crimes. It’s fortunate no one was injured when the gang carried out the raids.
This was an organised gang who were prepared to burgle houses and steal cars in order to commit further crimes
Detective Sergeant Richard Dickinson told.
‘The technique used resulted in the cash machines flying through the air, as shown in the UEA CCTV, which could have easily hit an innocent member of the public.
‘Hopefully these sentences will bring some comfort to the many distressed victims and witnesses in these crimes who have suffered at the hands of these dangerous men.’
