Members of an armed gang who raided an Oxford bank have served jail for similar robberies, a court heard yesterday.

Seven robbers face jail for a spree of 18 bank raids across the country, which netted them half a million pounds, including the HSBC bank in Summertown, Oxford, in November 2006.

The gang was only caught after ringleader Mark Nunes and accomplice Andrew Markland were shot dead by a police marksman during a foiled raid in Hampshire last year.

Getaway driver Terence Wallace, 26, and other gang members Adrian Johnson, 28, Leroy Wilkinson, 29, and Victor Iniodu, 34, all from south London, were found guilty of conspiracy to rob earlier this month following a seven-week trial. Three other men — Leroy Hall, Leon McKenzie and Brian Henry — pleaded guilty to being part of Nunes' gang before the trial began.

Prosecutors told the sentencing hearing at Kingston Crown Court that Hall, McKenzie and Wilkinson had all served lengthy jail terms of up to five years for previous ‘cash-in-transit’ robberies.

Iniodu had also been jailed for five years for being part of a gang which broke into a flat above a building society and tied up the couple who lived there.

They then burst into the building society through the ceiling to try to rob it when it opened in the morning.

Sentencing has been adjouned until Monday.