A one-and-a-half-minute video by a resident shows a gang of thieves carrying out an audacious ram-raid at Nationwide Building Society in Sawbridgeworth in the early hours of Tuesday.
A telehandler forklift truck is seen reversing away from the Nationwide in Knight Street at about 5.30am, while two men watch. After apparently ripping its front out, it drives in and back again dragging the cash machine away from the building..
The boom of the vehicle is then used to lift the cash machine and as it sways in the air a stolen pick-up truck reverses towards the smashed frontage and is manoeuvred into place. One of the raiders is seen running towards The Square before coming back with something in his hand.
The telehandler then drops the cash machine into the rear of the pick-up, which is reported to have been parked in the George IV pub in the same street before being stolen. The driver of the telehandler jumps out, leaving the door swinging, and runs past the pick-up, following another raider, apparently to a getaway vehicle..
The stolen pick-up – a Truckman belonging to sports ground maintenance specialists Garson’s – is then driven away towards The Square, with the cash machine wobbling and moving backwards in the rear.
The telehandler is left in the middle of the road at the junction of Bell Street and Knight Street.