Armed robbers jailed for security van spree

1:24pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

AN ARMED gang have been jailed for a series of robberies across Castle Point and Essex - which netted them £100,000.

Dean Cronin, 22, Daniel Dye, 20, and Jack Larwood, 18, held up at least four security vans in three months before being tracked down by police.

The raiders, armed with imitiation guns, threatened guards delivering cashboxes to banks during their crime spree between October and December 2006.

At the Old Bailey on Friday, Judge Inigo Bing sentenced getaway driver Dye to ten years in a young offenders' institution, Cronin to ten years in prison and Larwood to seven years in youth detention.

On October 3, 2006, the gang snatched a £25,000 cashbox from a van outside the Woolwich in High Road, Benfleet.

The same amount was taken from another cash delivery near Barclays bank in Epping on November 14, 2006.

A week later on November 21, 2006, the gang snatched another £25,000 cashbox from Barclays in Shenfield.

Finally, they returned to Benfleet for a cash delivery outside yet another Barclays on December 28, 2006, when a further £25,000 was swiped at gunpoint.

Dye was described as the most "unsophisticated" gang member after it emerged he failed to wear a Balaclava or gloves and left a Lucozade bottle with his DNA on it in a getaway vehicle. Cronin, of Romford and Dye, of Dagenham, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to have imitation firearms with intent.

Larwood, of Dagenham, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob, conspiracy to have imitation firearms with intent and possessing a prohibited weapon.

A fourth member William O'Hanlon, 21, also of Dagenham, will be sentenced on June 6 after pleading guilty to two counts of possessing criminal property.

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