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WATCH: Machete robbers who targeted Walsall casino jailed for 26 years

Three armed robbers have been locked up for a string of terrifying raids on convenience stores and a casino that saw them escape with £15,000 of cash and cigarettes.

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Wayne Marsh, Grant Walker and Andrew Warley were today starting prison sentences totalling 26 years.

They carried out three brutal robberies in just 12 days, threatening staff at Walsall's Grosvenor Casino, Wolverhampton's One Stop Shop and Tipton's Co-op with axes, a sickle and knives.

All three sites were open for business at the time the hooded criminals burst in. One traumatised Co-op worker - among several victims who needed counselling - later confessed: "When the axe was produced I thought he was going to kill me."

Walker, 24, Marsh, 33, and Warley, 40, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. Warley from Victoria Road, Bradmore, Wolverhampton, was jailed for nine years; Marsh of Clay Lane, Langley, got eight years and nine months while Walker, of Ocker Hill Road, Tipton, was sentenced to eight years and eight months.

From left to right: Grant Walker, Wayne Marsh, and Andrew Warley

Wolverhampton Crown Court was today told how a female cashier at Grosvenor Casino in Bentley Mill Way was hurled to the ground and cowered in a ball with hands over her head as Marsh and Walker, armed with a sickle and knife, rampaged through her kiosk causing £1,000 damage while snatching more than £3,000 cash. She is now plagued by sleepless nights and flashbacks.

Marsh took part in the robbery just five days after being freed from a five-year prison sentence for carbon copy crimes.

Mr Nicholas Cartwright, prosecuting, also revealed that Walker also appeared in court in the middle of the crime spree to receive a community punishment for an earlier offence of handling stolen number plates.

The gang, which used a stolen 180mph Audi RS5 on false plates as a getaway car, first struck at the One Stop Shop in Oxley Moor Road, Oxley, at 8.20am on September 21 last year. Two men burst into the shop waving an axe and screaming 'Where are the keys? Open the safe!'.

There were no customers but two terrified male staff members did as they were told while Walker and a second unidentified man plundered cigarette display cabinets and the safe fleeing with an £8,500-plus haul in the white Audi driven by Warley, who has 37 previous convictions totalling 172 offences and was wearing a Halloween mask.

He and Walker were joined in the raid on the Co-op in Unity Walk, Tipton, by recently-released Marsh. Walker and Marsh leapt over the counter, throwing one female worker to the floor and threatening another with an axe on September 27. They took more than £3,000 cash and cigarettes from the shop, which was fortunately empty of customers.

The hooded trio then struck five days later at the casino, where Walker and Marsh rushed past punters before vaulting the counter into the cashier's office. Again Warley was the getaway driver.

The next day, detectives investigating several Black Country raids swooped on a lock-up garage on the Great Bridge Industrial Estate where they found the stolen Audi together with weapons, balaclavas and gloves used by the gang. Forensic evidence and other intelligence led them to the three defendants who all admitted conspiracy to commit robbery.

Judge James Burbidge QC told them: "You got kitted up with disguises, selected your weapons and put the fear of violence into members of staff who were considerably traumatised."

Detective Sergeant Martin Kelly added: "These were nasty attacks and although no staff members were physically hurt they were all threatened with extreme violence.

"The casino robbery was particularly brazen. Two of them walked in through the front door at 7pm, just as the venue was starting to get busy, and as one plundered the cash desk the other stood guard waving a machete around and warning off security staff.

"The men were always masked and made efforts to conceal their identity ? but we were able to prove their claims not to know each other were false, while police intelligence built up a strong picture of their offending. They have rightly been handed long jail terms."

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