Cash Robbery Plotters Jailed

Four men who spent weeks plotting to steal from cash delivery vans have been jailed.

The men, from north Manchester, were being watched by police as they spent hours scrutinising cash deliveries at supermarkets, banks and businesses.

They were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court yesterday.

All had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery at an earlier hearing.

Callum McManus, 21, of Sandybrook Drive, Blackley, was jailed for five years four months.

Kevin Taaffe, 32, of Shakleton Avenue, Blackley, and Dale Hall, 25, of Booth Hall Road, Blackley were each jailed for four years eight months.

Nicholas Fox, 20, of Charlestown Road, Blackley, was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

A fifth man, Lee Whitely, 20, of Moston Lane East, Moston, pleaded guilty to handling a stolen vehicle at their earlier hearing. He was jailed for four months.

In June 2009, Greater Manchester Police began investigating McManus as it was believed he was involved in the commissioning and planning of robberies.

Between Monday 15 June and Monday 6 July 2009, McManus and his accomplices were seen observing cash deliveries or watching cash machines on at least 14 separate occasions.

On Friday 19 June, McManus was seen driving in a car in tandem with a Skoda that had been stolen in a burglary weeks earlier.

Shortly after midnight on Sunday 21 June, the stolen Skoda was reported as being on fire in Blackley.

In the days that followed, he was seen depositing money into a bank and shopping for jewellery with his girlfriend.

On Thursday 25 June, men armed with a machete and hammer went into the home of a family in Middleton, demanded car keys and stole a Seat Leon from the drive.

Whitely was seen driving the Leon the following day.

Events culminated on Monday 29 June, when McManus, Taaffe, Hall and Fox took the Seat Leon, by now on false number plates, to Morrisons in Failsworth to commit a robbery as cash was being delivered to the store.

McManus, Taaffe and Hall were armed with a hammer, sledgehammer and 12in knife respectively. Fox waited in the car while the others ran into the store and began hammering on the door to the cash office.

They fled the store empty handed, having failed to get into the cash office and sped off in the Leon.

Detective Constable Justin Bryant, from Greater Manchester Police's Robbery Unit, said: "These men brought fear and misery to lives of honest hard-working people, indiscriminate of whether they stole from a young family or a big business, so it is satisfying to see that they are where they belong.

"I hope today's result send out the message that it is unacceptable and we will do all we can to bring criminals like this to justice."

(PR/GK)