Police trace bank robber James Snell's car through his personalised number plate
Blundering James Snell was spotted in his BMW with the registration "J4MES" as he nicked a heavy drain cover.
The cover was used to smash a bank window in a £104,000 raid - and Snell was tracked down after a witness remembered seeing the number plate and told cops.
Snell, 27, his brother Wayne, 34, and two other crooks have now been jailed for a total of 38 years over the robbery in Cardiff.
The city's Crown Court heard the gang struck as security guards were refilling a Halifax branch cash machine around midnight.
Two raiders used metal drain covers to shatter the window while a third threatened the guards with a bat and the fourth waited in a stolen getaway car.
A council highways official later identified one of the covers. The witness had seen it being pinched by a man in a sporty blue BMW with a personal plate.
The car was found at a house where the Snell brothers were caught red-handed with £30,000.
Prosecutor Daniel Williams said: "It was the distinctiveness of the car which contributed to the robbers' undoing."
The Snells and Adam Abbot, 38, admitted robbery. Carl Campion, 44, had denied the charge but was found guilty at a separate trial.
Source: Police trace bank robber James Snell's car through his personalised number plate
