A judge has praised the work of a police team who brought an Ogwell-based gang of ATM raiders to justice and secured sentences totalling 50 years.

The detectives spent 18 months building up the case against the Liverpool-based crime family which was led by Robin Vaughan and his two sons Robin junior and Jonny.

The gang targeted cashpoint machines in South Devon over six months between December 2015 and May 2015, and started with Vaughan senior using welding gas cylinders to try to blow them off the wall.

The attacks on a NatWest at Newton Road, Torquay, and a Barclays at St Marychurch both failed, although there was an explosion in the second raid and £11,000 damage was caused.

His two sons then tried a second method of attack in April and May in which they ram-raided Coop shops and tried to drag out free-standing cash machines using vans or Land Rovers.

Their two attempts at shops failed because the towbar fell off a Freelander in the raid at Dartmouth and the rope snapped at the shop in Paignton.

The brothers went on to carry out a successful robbery of a security guard who was changing the cassettes full of money at a Santander branch in Brixham.

Detective Inspector Kay Chapman led the team which investigated all the offences and used a combination of phone tracking, number plate recognition systems, DNA testing, fingerprints, and other forensics to build up a cast-iron case against the eight members of the gang.

A key breakthrough came when they discovered that some of the vehicles used in the crime spree had been left without permission in the car park of the Prickly Ball Farm animal attraction at Ogwell, near Newton Abbot.

They saw the Vaughan brothers at the nearby Rydon Ball holiday cottage when they went to investigate and they recovered vital evidence after the gang fled the hideout.

Judge Erik Salomonsen praised the efforts of the team as he sentenced the final member of the gang, Frederick Pearce, to a two-year suspended sentence at Exeter Crown Court.

He said: ‘The investigating officers have undertaken a first-rate job. The guilty pleas on the part of all the defendants came about because they were all tied up so tightly by the evidence despite none being arrested in the act.

‘The evidence gathered has been a real credit to the officers and it is a pleasure to see this quality of work, which has saved a four-week trial and seen all the defendants properly punished by the court.’

The officers who led the inquiry were Detective Inspector Kay Chapman, and Detective Constables Ian Clenahan and Nikki Zulhayir.

The eight members of the gang and their sentences were:

Robin Vaughan Senior, aged 44, from Huyton, and Joseph Field, aged 35, of Willow Grove, Warrington, who both admitted conspiracy to cause explosions and were jailed for 14 years and six months and four years and six months.

Robin Vaughan Junior, aged 27, of Huyton; Jonny Vaughan, aged 21, of Lyme Grove, Liverpool, admitted conspiracy to burgle and to rob and were jailed for 10 years and seven years and one month.

Peter Atkinson, sged 18, of Scotchbarn Lane, Prescot, admitted conspiracy to rob and was jailed for three years eight months.

James Brewer, aged 35, of Brookwood Street, Liverpool; and Ian Harris, aged 36, of Ash Hill Road, Torquay, admitted conspiracy to burgle and were jailed for four years, eight months and three years seven months.

Frederick Pearce, aged 53, of Tor Hill Street, Torquay, admitted conspiracy to burgle and was jailed for two years, suspended for two years, and ordered to receive a year’s drug rehabilitation.