Five men in court over ATM stolen with £16k

FIVE men accused of ‘ being involved in a serious and organised crime’ when they allegedly stole a cash machine containing more than £16,000 from a shop appeared in court yesterday.

Nanu Miah, 27, Robin Vaughan, 43, Anthony Conroy, 28, Andrew White, 26, and Carl Cavanagh, 32, were arrested following a dramatic swoop by armed police in the car park of a McDonald’s restaurant in Arbroath, Angus, on Friday.

They are accused of stealing an ATM from a Co-op store in Barry Road, Carnoustie, in the early hours of Friday morning.

Officers shot out the wheels of a Mercedes car in front of shocked customers at the fast food franchise.

It was reported that staff and customers were kept inside the McDonald’s while the arrests were made.

police said the arrests were part of an ongoing operation involving

‘There was purple

puff in the air’

officers in England and Scotland.

The men appeared in private on petition at Forfar Sheriff Court.

All five faced a charge under the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act alleging they were involved in serious and organised crime.

Miah, from Birmingham, faced further motoring charges over the incident.

Vaughan, Cavanagh and White, from Liverpool, Conroy, of no fixed abode, and Miah all made no plea to the charges.

Sheriff gregor Murray remanded the men in custody ahead of a further hearing next week.

A police Scotland’s Tayside Division spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that five men have been charged in relation to the theft of an ATM in the Barry Road area of Carnoustie on February 12.’

Scott Barber, 41, of Arbroath, who was at the McDonald’s at the time, said: ‘We were sitting in the drive-through parking. I heard bang, bang, bang and it looked like paintball ammunition. There was a purple puff in the air.’