THREE teenagers were locked up for their part in robbing a security guard of a cashbox containing £28,000.

Get-away driver Michael Tremarco, 19, pulled into the Morrisons petrol station in London Road, Grays, before Nathanuel Owusu, 17, got out with a baseball bat and confronted a Group 4 Securicor worker.

Owusu ordered the terrified man to hand over the cashbox then fled in the stolen vehicle, which also contained a third man only identified as Silver.

Tremarco and the third defendant Charlie Martinson, 18, were caught out after Martinson was captured on camera driving a Mercedes as it travelled in convoy with the Peugeot Tremarco was driving on August 20, last year.

Within hours police traced the Mercedes to Martinson’s home in Dock Road, Grays, where Martinson and Tremarco were arrested.

The stolen cashbox, which had Owusu’s and Tremarco’s fingerprints on, was found at the garage.

At Basildon Crown Court, Tremarco of Sark Road, Newham, pleaded guilty to robbery and also asked for six further offences, including burglary and theft, to be taken into consideration. He was jailed for two years and four months.

Martinson, who admitted handling stolen goods, was locked up for two years.

Judge Christopher Mitchell told him: “You were very close to this robbery. It was quite a lot of money and you played your part.”

Owusu, who was convicted of robbery last month after a jury rejected the claim he had been forced to carry out the crime, was sentenced to a two-year detention and training order.

Judge Mitchell lifted an order preventing the press from identifying the defendant, who has a string of previous convictions for offences including attempted robbery.