A FOURTH man has been found guilty of being part of a gang which held up a cash truck carrying £435,000 at a service station near Alvechurch.

A jury at Worcester Crown Court decided 38-year-old Leon Brown, of Willersley Gardens, Birmingham, was part of the gang who ambushed a driver and hijacked the mobile cashpoint truck.

It was on its way from Oxfordshire to the V Festival in Staffordshire on August 15 last year when the robbers struck at the Hopwood Service Station on the M42 as the driver stopped for lunch.

They were wearing ski masks and hoods and forced terrified driver Ian Dewsbury into a black Audi while one of the gang took his keys and drove the truck. They then drove through Alvechurch before making a rendezvous with the truck in a field near Alvechurch railway station and ordering

Mr Dewsbury to help them get to the cassettes of £20 notes.

They loaded the cash into the boot of the Audi and locked him in the back of the truck , the court heard. He escaped and and called police who followed the gang in a helicopter. The helicopter crew recorded them stopping in Birmingham and running off in different directions. Police found clothing with Brown's DNA discarded in a bin along with clothes worn by the other robbers. He was stopped nearby shortly afterwards and arrested later.

He told police he had been at his mother's restaurant in Birmingham and had then been out jogging when the robbery took place.

The jury was told Brown, who pleaded not guilty to a robbery charge, had previous convictions for similar offences. He was found guilty by a majority verdict.

Three other men pleaded guilty earlier and will be sentenced with Brown in the next 28 days. A fifth man has not been found.