A MEMBER of a robbery gang that targeted bank vans in York has failed in his bid to escape justice.

A jury at Sheffield Crown Court convicted Acomb man Kieran Luke Charles Guildford of conspiracy of rob and he will now stand alongside three other gang members when they are sentenced later this autumn for their £50,000 crimes.

They were all part of an organised crime group that spanned England and moved cars back and forth across the Pennines to carry out their carefully planned raids outside banks in Acomb.

One member, Marlon Otis Benjamin, 24, of Wallasey, is already serving a sentence of 13 years for the Acomb conspiracy and other robberies in Cheshire and the Liverpool area.

The rest have been warned they could join him behind bars. All but Benjamin are from York.

Guildford, 21, of Gale Lane, Acomb, sat with his head bowed after the jury returned their unanimous verdict.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said: “Given his background and age, I think there should be a full (probation service) report on him. Arrangements will have to be made for all the defendants who have been convicted to be sentenced together.”

Guildford was one of three York gang members who travelled across to Liverpool to meet Benjamin and collect a stolen Ford Focus on the evening of April 17, 2012.

On arriving in York just after midnight, they put false cloned number plates on it so that it could be used as the second getaway car the following morning, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Just after 10 am, three gang members robbed a security guard of £25,000 before fleeing in a stolen black Peugeot that had also brought across from Liverpool and given cloned number plates.

They swapped almost immediately to the Focus, which was abandoned in its turn shortly afterwards.

The two gang members who accompanied Guildford were Adam Herrington, 26, of Hewley Avenue, Tang Hall, and Martin Cooke, 26, of Walmgate. Herrington had been due to stand trial with Guildford, but after some hesitation pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob as the jury waited to be sworn in. He was on bail at the time.

His barrister Colin Dunn said the reason he had “prevaricated”

was because “he was extremely concerned he would be remanded in custody as a result of a honest guilty plea.

Mr Dunn said: “He has an extremely poorly mother and he has commercial disputes which he needs to deal with before the inevitable custody sentence follows.”

Herrington pleaded guilty on a basis which means that he accepted that he had committed the crime, but didn’t accept all the evidence against him. He is still on bail.

Cooke pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob last November, and has been awaiting sentence ever since.

He travelled back to Liverpool in a car linked to Benjamin immediately after the first robbery and linked up with Benjamin’s girlfriend, Lisa Gardner, in North Yorkshire immediately after a second similar £25,000 bank van raid in October 2012, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

The fourth York member of the gang, Matthew Hawksby, 25, of Carleton Street, had also been expected to stand trial with Guildford. But before it could begin, through his barrister asked if the judge would give an indication of the maximum sentence he would receive if he changed his plea.

The judge said he could not.

Hawksby, after talking to his barrister, changed his plea to guilty to conspiracy to rob on a basis.

Sheffield Crown Court heard he did not go on the trip to Liverpool but was in close contact with Cooke and Herrington on April 17 both before and after the journey.

Gardner, 37, of Rudgrave Place, Wallasey, will be sentenced alongside the other defendants after she pleaded guilty to assisting an offender.

She accepted that she knew that Cooke had committed an offence when she collected Benjamin by car after the October robbery so that he would not be arrested.

The maximum sentence for conspiracy to rob is life imprisonment.

The prosecution has yet to say whether they accept the basis of the pleas of Herrington and Hawksby. If the CPS does not, the judge will hear evidence and decide the basis on which he sentences them. No date sentencing date has been set.