JAILED: Carjacking gang pulled gun on grieving husband at his wife's graveside
A carjacking gang who targeted lone female drivers and pulled a gun on a grieving widower have been jailed for a total of more than 60 years.
Ringleader Paul Doyle, aged 41, along with 22-year-olds Luke Mander and Joshua Barrett struck at least 46 times in just 11 weeks between October and December 2018.
On one occasion the gang threatened a man with a pistol while he tended his wife’s grave in Streetly, Walsall, and on another they held up a heavily pregnant shop assistant at gun-point in Chelmsley Wood.
It is estimated the gang stole high-end cars worth in excess of half a million pounds.
WATCH: Video shows robbery gang in action
Doyle, of no fixed address, was described in court as a ‘puppet master’ who pulled the strings of his younger co-conspirators and encouraged them to seriously injure any victim who dared to fight back.
Their crime spree began on the night of October 3 when a 51-year-old woman was dragged from her car in Maryland Avenue, Hodge Hill, by two masked men who drove off in her Peugeot.
Eight days later, a 48-year-old woman was set upon by two masked men wielding metal poles as they stole her Audi Q5.
The men were involved in more robberies in October including at Dorridge train station, Princess Alice Retail Park in Sutton Coldfield and Chelmsley Town Football Club.
On November 9, they struck at a shop in Norwich Croft, Chelmsley Wood, where CCTV shows the shop assistant − who was eight-months pregnant − cowering on the floor having been threatened with a Second World War-style Lugar handgun.
And on December 4 the gang sank pulled a pistol on a 56-year-old man as he tended his wife’s graveside at Streetly Crematorium.
They failed to start the victim’s Nissan GTR and, as they fled, dropped a glove which when forensically examined by West Midlands Police returned a DNA hit to Doyle.3
However the breakthrough came on November 27 when the gang hijacked a recovery truck at Bassetts Pole in Sutton Coldfield. The VW Golf on the back of the truck had originally been stolen by the same gang when they dragged a pregnant woman out of it at a retail park in Tamworth.
The suspects forced the recovery driver to take the vehicle to a nearby lane where it was stolen for a second time.
However a member of the public saw what happened and recovered a phone dropped by Mander during the scuffle.
Arrests
Arrests were made and detectives found damning ‘selfies’ showing the men pictured alongside stolen cars, motorhomes and secured further DNA and mobile phone evidence linking them to crime scenes across the West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia.
All three pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal motor vehicles and the robberies but only Doyle, shown on CCTV brandishing the pistol during the Solihull shop raid, admitted firearms offences.
However, a jury found them both guilty of conspiring to possess and possessing an imitation gun and at Birmingham Crown Court they were handed lengthy jail terms.
Doyle was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Mander, from Kingsbury Road, Birmingham, and Barratt, from Greenhill Way, Shirley, were handed jail terms of 16-and-a-half and 18 years respectively.
A fourth man, 18-year-old Kier Carter, from Kingsbury Road in Erdington, admitted being involved in the car thefts at an earlier hearing and was jailed for three years.
'Brazen'
The crimes were carried out across the areas covered by Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands Police forces.
Detective Constable Adam Buzzard, the investigating officer from West Midlands Police, said: "Doyle is a dangerous, erratic individual with a penchant for violence − he’s a convicted armed robber who was only released from prison in July 2018 after almost a decade behind bars.
"He recruited Mander and Barrett to carry out his offending; even when not present at offences he was clearly orchestrating the attacks, acting as a puppet master for Mander and Barrett who were drawn in by an older role model and the promise of quick cash.
"The group were brazen, not afraid to commit robberies in broad daylight on their own doorstep in Chelmsley Wood.
"We recovered many of the stolen cars − but the impact on victims has been profound with most suffering long term psychological damage as well as having to carry the physical scars of injuries.
"They have rightly been handed long prison sentences for what was a shocking series of robberies."
