Four men who snatched £340,000 in two violent hold-ups in east London have been jailed for a total of more than 30 years.

They tailed the manager of a money transfer shop for six miles as he drive home to Manor Park from Whitechapel where they attacked him.

The gang stopped his car in Snowshill Road outside his house and grabbed his keys before snatching a money bag with £300,000 from his car boot.

But they were caught on a security camera outside a bank in Whitechapel during a second raid months later targeting the same business when an employee was robbed of £30,000.

Police matched up the footage with earlier CCTV showing two Mini cars watching the shop when the manager was tailed.

It led to Flying Squad detectives identifying the gang which had carried out both heists in just 10 months, in 2011 and 2012.

Det Sgt Holly Simon from the Met’s Flying Squad said after Friday’s sentencing at the Old Bailey: “This was a terrifying act by a very calculated group of men who used violence to steal from a small business.”

Akhbar Hussain, 40, from Mile End, was jailed for six years. Shetu Meah, 31, also from Mile End, got 12 years. Abdion Hassan, 23, from Walthamstow, was sentenced to nine years. Vinton Meade, 29, from Clapton, who admitted his part in one of the robberies, got five years.