Gambling addict jailed after ram-raiding Didcot Co-op

James Sayers, 31, was part of a group who used a digger to smash through the wall of the Didcot supermarket and tear out a cash machine in the early hours of May 3, 2019.

The gang had stolen a Ford Transit van and cut a hole in the roof in order to drop the ATM cash machine inside using plant machinery at about 2.30am.

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In the raid they bagged as much as £105,000, prosecutors at Hove Crown Court said.

At the time, the branch on the Ladygrove estate was cordoned off by police for the day.

Pictures showed a gaping hole where the cashpoint had been and a pile of rubble.

Wires from the machine could be seen strewn across the car park where the ATM had been dragged out.

When the news broke, Thames Valley Police did not confirm whether it was linking the theft to any previous raids.

But when Sayers was arrested – after his DNA was left on abandoned diggers at the scene linked to the crime – he admitted a second ram-raid at a Barclays Bank branch in West Sussex.

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In that raid, the thieves had stolen vehicles and were seen going in convoy to the bank in Henfield, where they used a JCB Telehandler to rip out an ATM from the wall at 2am on April 15, 2018.

That ATM – which had about £50,000 inside – was then loaded into a stolen Nissan Navara pick-up truck and later dumped, along with the burnt-out van, in a woodland.

As they left the woods in a stolen Audi A6 estate car, just before 4am, they were confronted by a member of the public whose vehicle they rammed.

James Sayers

In both cases, Sayers was pinned to the crime scene by his DNA.

It was claimed in court how he had got involved because of his spiralling gambling debts.

When he was arrested, he admitted two burglaries – one at Barclays and one at the Co-op, as well as taking vehicles without the owners' consent.

He was sentenced to 30 months in prison for both offences.

The sentence will run concurrently to a five-year sentence that Sayers is currently serving at HMP Highdown for a similar ATM ram-raid in Hampshire in 2019.

A concurrent sentence means it will be served alongside his current sentence.

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