A BUNGLING gang of Scousers who drove to Bristol for a crime blitz managed to steal just a torch and some cigarettes, a court heard.
The men stole a Vauxhall Vivaro van from Bolton on May 7 and also took a Ford Fiesta which had been parked in Portishead, Bristol Crown Court was told.
They then attempted to rob White Cot Stores in Portishead and Tinknell Country Store Ltd in Congresbury, but only snatched £3,000 worth of tobacco in the first raid and a torch in the second.
When police gave chase the gang drove up the wrong side of the M5, with police looking on as they drove alongside them on the right side.
The gang ejected bags of garden waste and "metallic objects" from the van before stopping and fleeing into woods, where they were rounded up by a police dog.
Five men pleaded guilty to two burglaries on May 9.
They were: Daniel Ryan, 24, of Prescot, Merseyside, who was driving the van, and Kirby men Kevin McCabe, 19, Anthony Keating, 24 and Kevin Burke, 25.
The fifth gang member was Jordon Lytollis, 18, of no fixed abode.
All pleaded guilty to taking the Ford Fiesta without authority on May 9.
Ryan pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking and driving the Vauxhall Vivaro dangerously on the A38, Portway and M5, and driving while disqualified on May 9.
Lytollis, McCabe, Keating and Burke pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking of the Vauxhall Vivaro, being carried as passengers.
The recorder Mr Michael Parroy QC sentenced teenagers Lytollis and McCabe to two years each in a young offenders' institution.
He jailed each of the older men for three and a half years.
He said: "To describe this as an utterly horrendous event is something of an under-statement. You tried to get away. Thankfully, you did not."
Ryan was banned from driving for ten years.
Julian Howells, prosecuting, said witnesses disturbed by an alarm saw the gang outside the first shop, from where they forced their way in and grabbed cigarettes.
CCTV captured the masked intruders before they drove off in the Fiesta, abandoning the car elsewhere in Portishead.
Half an hour later the gang managed to steal a torch from the second shop, having failed to snatch an angle grinder, and were seen once again as they drove off in the Vauxhall.
Mr Howells said police liaised with the force helicopter as they pursued the gang.
He told the court: "A stinger device was deployed but the van was able to avoid it. They went on towards Avonmouth, through a red light, and went on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, the wrong way round a roundabout and the wrong way up the M5."
The court heard at one stage the van collided with a police car and a hammer smashed the windscreen of another.
After some 20 miles police instigated a controlled stop of the van and cordoned off an area between the M5 and Cribbs Causeway before a dog tracked the gang down, Lytollis having to be zapped with a stun gun.
Charlotte Kenny, defending McCabe, Lytollis and Burke, said all three men had drug habits and conceded they had travelled south to commit crime.
Daniel Travers, defending Ryan and Keating, said Ryan's drug misuse had led him to offend. He said Keating was in a relationship with a dentist who was attempting to make him lead a decent, law-abiding life.
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