A GANG that brought terror to communities by blowing up cashpoints in a £2.3m crime wave have been jailed for a combined total of 31 years.

Three Wyedean cash machines were among 23 targeted in mainly rural areas by the “bold and brazen” masked raiders over a three-month period, Leicester Crown Court heard.

The cashpoint at the new Co-op convenience store on Monmouth’s Rockfield Road was blasted with a gas cannister at 4am last November, followed two days later by attacks on the Co-op in Lydney, which failed, and the General Garage petrol station and store in Huntley, where burnt and melted notes were left strewn amid the debris on the forecourt.

The court was told how the attacks carried out by Alfie Adams, 37, John Doran, 20, and Charlie Smith, 32, netted £1.5m and made residents’ homes shake, leaving behind an £800,000 trail of damage.

Det Ch Insp Martin Smalley of Leicestershire Police, who led the nationwide investigation, said the “vol­atile gas mixtures” used to blow up the machines “could have had devastating consequences.”

“The reliance on these ATMs by such small rural communities was great, but the fear and discord caused by these attacks in what was often the heart of their village was much greater,” he said.

Prosecutor Andrew Howarth said the three raiders, who were described as members of the travelling community, were “a highly organised gang” who operated with “military precision.”

“They used high powered vehicles, obtained for the purpose of carrying out attacks, or stolen vehicles. They wore hoodies and balaclava masks, and used angle grinders and sledge hammers.”

False number plates on the getaway vehicles were changed frequently, and as in Lydney and Huntley, the gang often carried out two raids in one night, drilling holes into the front of cash machines, and pumping gas in through metal pipes which was ignited with a battery pack.