Bungling thieves tried to steal cash machine by ripping it out of a supermarket
The attempted burglary at a Co-op in Kent failed when their van's chassis broke.
A gang of bungling thieves tried to steal a cash machine by ripping it out of a supermarket but failed when the chassis of their van broke.
George Jones, 31, was one of three men who tried to drag an ATM out of a Co-op in Kent last April.
The smash-and-grab gang knocked down the store's wall with one van, then tried to use the second to pull the cash machine out of the floor and through the hole.
At Maidstone Crown Court on Thursday, Jones was jailed for four years and nine months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to burgle and dangerous driving at a previous hearing.
A strap had been tied around the cash machine inside the shop in Longfield and attached to the chassis bar of the other van at around 4am on 6 April 2022.
But when the first attempt was made to pull the machine out of the store, the second bid broke the van's chassis bar and the theft was abandoned.
Following the attempted break-in, the three men fled the scene in their vehicles and switched to a third van.
Officers found the third van after it was spotted on the M25 and the driver tried to get away, Kent Police said.
During the police chase, the driver went through red traffic lights, the wrong way down a dual carriageway and at speeds of over 100mph.
The pursuit ended in a park in Banstead, Surrey, when the gang abandoned the vehicle.
Jones was found by a police dog hiding under a bush and arrested, according to police.
A shirt that linked Jones to the scene and the vehicle was found nearby, police added.
CCTV and the officers' body-worn footage showed the damage caused to the shop and the moment police chased down Jones and dragged him from the undergrowth.
Kent Police issued a warning to cash machine thieves after the sentencing of Jones who was the fourth man in the county to be jailed for a similar crime in the last 12 months.
Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Greenstreet, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: "Measures to help prevent future offences of this kind are now in place and I hope staff and workers at businesses around the county feel safer knowing that those behind this kind of offending are in prison."
