Three members of a gang that stole £120,000 by blowing up a string of cash machines have failed in a bid to get their jail terms cut on appeal.

Gary Mills, of Fleetwood Close, Chalfont St Giles, was among those jailed last year for a spate of ATM gas attacks across London and the Home Counties.

Mills, 40, and Trevor McCarthy, 43, of Barlby Road, Ladbroke Grove, were each sentenced to 10 years and eight months behind bars.

They caused around £200,000 of damage in the attacks, in August and September last year.

Ray Abraham, 37, of Hobart Drive, Hythe, Southampton, who was also part of the gang which pumped combustible gas into 10 ATMs and ignited it, was handed 11 years and four months behind bars.

The gang was caught after trying to blow up a cash machine at the Shell petrol station in North Orbital Road, Denham.

All three pleaded guilty, along with a fourth man - Daniel Dorkin, 26, of Baynard Close, Basingstoke, Hampshire - to conspiracy to steal, conspiracy to commit criminal damage and recklessness endangering life.

This week, lawyers for the trio - Mills, McCarthy and Abraham - asked Mr Justice Jeremy Baker to cut their sentences at London’s Appeal Court.

None of them admitted being involved in all of the raids, and no-one could be identified as the “leader” of the gang, said Mr Justice Baker.

“But each played an essential role. This can properly be described as a team effort,” he added.

"The uncertain nature of the explosions endangered life and there was a high level of planning and a high degree of profit.

“The plan was very simply to steal as much as they could from these cash machines.

“They did so in a way that was breathtakingly reckless.”

He concluded: “It is only by good fortune that nobody was seriously hurt, or indeed killed. These appeals fail.”