Three men who carried out a £230,000 armed robbery at a jewellery arcade with an axe, sledgehammer and baseball bat have been jailed.
They were part of a group of five men who also stole almost £20,000 in cash from a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in Edinburgh days later.
The two men involved in the Edinburgh robbery were jailed for more than 13 years.
Sentencing the group at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Turnbull said: “This is behaviour which can truly be described as serious and organised criminal conduct. The two armed robberies I am dealing with each involved planning, determination and the calculated use of violence.
“Some of those involved are clearly career criminals to whom such conduct comes easily and is seen as a way of life. One or two others have been caught up under the influence of those more actively involved.”
Jason Yendall, 30, Arran Brannan, 23, and Jason Britton, 23, all from Manchester, earlier pleaded guilty to the armed raids on Rox in the Argyll Arcade, Glasgow, on September 24 last year and the RBS in Home Street, Edinburgh, on October 2.
Alistair Oliver, 30, and Gordon McLay, 32, both from East Lothian, pleaded guilty to the RBS robbery and to being in possession of some of the stolen watches from Rox and selling them on.
Some of the men were given extended sentences with a custodial period and then a period on licence.
Yendall was sentenced to 12 years and nine months in jail with an extension period of five years, while Brannan was given a 10-and-a-half-year custodial period with a five-year extension.
Britton was jailed for five years and 10 months.
McLay was sentenced to six years behind bars for the RBS raid, while Oliver was given a seven-and-a-half-year custodial sentence with a four-year extension period.
In total, 21 watches with a total value of £229,601 were stolen in the Rox robbery.
The haul included 19 Hublot watches, some worth £23,000 and £19,300, none of which has been recovered.
At the earlier hearing, the court was told that in the Rox robbery the men drove a stolen Volkswagen Golf and a van from Edinburgh to Glasgow, parking the van in Castle Street and the car in a lane near Argyll Arcade.
They ran into the shopping arcade, which was busy with staff and customers, and entered Rox.
CCTV footage showed them smashing an internal display window and filling a sports bag with watches.
A worker in Rox managed to hit a panic alarm while a staff member in another jewellery shop in the arcade activated a smoke security system which filled the area, the court was told.
As the men ran out of the arcade, some members of the public filmed them on mobile phones. One of the robbers shouted: “I’ll kill you all.”
They made off in the Golf and abandoned it in Castle Street, where they got into the van and headed back to Edinburgh.
CCTV pictures showed Oliver and McLay in a bookmaker’s shop at the time of the robbery and they were later seen wearing stolen watches.
Just over a week later, all five men took part in the RBS robbery.
Receipts found by police showed Oliver had bought four balaclavas and an axe from B&Q before the raid.
They threatened staff in the bank, with one of the men shouting: “Don’t phone the police or we’ll kill you.”
They took £19,569 from cash drawers and escaped in McLay’s car, but were caught in Howdenhall Road by police who had the men under surveillance.