ROBBERS, who hid in bushes on a driveway to lie in wait for their victim, were pounced on by waiting armed cops.
The pair of crooks were part of a gang who plotted the audacious robbery of a businesswoman they wrongly believed would be returning to her Broxbourne home with the day's takings in her handbag.
Members of the gang had spent five weeks staking out woman and her husband, who ran a meat wholesalers in North London, as they travelled between their home in Baas Lane and their business.
On March 20 two of the gang, David Ajibulu and Paul Webster, dressed in dark clothing with hoods and scarves across their faces, and hid in bushes on the victim's driveway.
The 50-year-old wife drove onto the driveway and was just about to get out of her car when the armed officers sprang into action and pulled the two criminals from the bushes.
Other officers then arrested Recep Ozer and Christopher Adamson, who were waiting to rendezvous with the robbers in a car park at a golf club in Broxbourne. A fifth man, Mark Wells, was arrested at his home address in Cheshunt for his part in plotting the robbery.
Sentencing the gang members, Judge Marie Catterson, sitting at St Albans Crown Court, said: "This was a difficult, delicate and painstaking operation. The careful work undertaken led a to a safe conclusion
The officer in the case and all of the team involved are to be commended as this case demonstrated the highest standards of policing."
The Judge sentenced both Ajibulu, 21, of Langton House, Langton Road, Hoddesdon, and Webster, 23, of Park Lane, Waltham Cross, to four and a half years imprisonment each.
Recep Ozer, 21, of Albert Court, Holdbrook South, Waltham Cross, was sentenced to six and a half years in jail.
Christopher Adamson, 18, of Moorfield Road, Enfield, was sentenced to two years.
Mark Wells, 18, of Brookfield Gardens, Cheshunt, was sentenced to two and a half years in a young offenders' institution.
Detective Inspector Paul Chinery from the Serious & Organised Crime Group's Covert Investigation Unit said: "Today's sentencing is a clear example of the robust stance that Hertfordshire Police, and in particular the Serious and Organised Crime Group within Hertfordshire, take around organised criminals prepared to use violence on innocent members of the public.
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