Police marksmen were right to blast tyres of heist car
SCOTLAND’S police watchdog has backed officers who shot the tyres of a car being driven by ‘Italian Job’ cash machine raiders.
Kate Frame, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC), said police were ‘justified’ due to the risk to public safety.
The thieves were part of a criminal gang which stole more than half a million pounds by blowing up cash machines at banks and shops across Britain in an audacious yearlong campaign.
The Scottish Daily Mail told yesterday how police shot out the tyres of the getaway car in Carnoustie, Angus, after it rammed into a police car in an attempt to escape arrest.
The Commissioner’s report found that because of the high risk posed to the public and police, the police firearms response was both ‘necessary and proportionate’. According to PIRC, ‘police intelligence indicated that the persons responsible for the ATM theft and other crimes had access to firearms, a history of extreme violence and had previously used stolen vehicles to ram police vehicles’.
The incident took place on February 12, 2016, after the gang had been involved in the theft of a cash machine in Carnoustie.
A vehicle suspected of being involved in the incident was seen parked in Arbroath and police dispatched armed officers.
The officers discharged three shotgun tyre-deflation rounds (TDRs) to disable the suspects’ vehicle when they used it to ram a police car in an attempt to escape. Police then arrested the occupants of the vehicle.
Two further rounds were also discharged at another vehicle which was mistakenly thought to be involved with the earlier theft.
Miss Frame said: ‘The police response, to what was a significant threat to public safety and the officers themselves, was wholly justified.
‘They had reliable intelligence to indicate they were dealing with suspects who had access to firearms, a history of extreme violence and who had previously used high-powered vehicles to ram police vehicles.
‘When the suspects then used the same dangerous tactic to try to avoid arrest, the use of TDRs to disable their vehicle was not only necessary but proportionate.’
The findings were submitted to Police Scotland in May last year and were published yesterday after the thieves’ trial finished at Liverpool Crown Court. The court heard the raiders used stolen high-performance cars which they transported around the country inside an HGV lorry, in a plot reminiscent of The Italian Job.
Dramatic CCTV footage showed the men blasting open ATMs using highly flammable oxy-acetylene gas, while other cash dispensers were dragged from their housings by heavy-duty straps attached to stolen vehicles.
The gang targeted 13 around the UK, stealing £611,000, including £106,000 from four in Scotland.
On Wednesday, four gang members – three from Merseyside, one from Birmingham – were convicted of conspiring to commit burglary and cause explosions between February 2015 and February last year.
Two others from Merseyside pleaded guilty to the same offences at an earlier hearing, while one from Liverpool was found guilty of conspiring to cause an explosion.
All seven were remanded and face lengthy prison terms when they are sentenced this month.