The four, toting handguns and a ma-chete fled Barclays Bank, in Culcheth, after ramming a car into it.
The gang reversed a white Volvo 440 into the Lodge Drive bank at about 10.45am yesterday. They left empty-handed and no-one was injured. They then barged into a butcher’s and demanded the van keys at gunpoint, forcing staff to hand them over.
The Mercedes van they took was later found abandoned in Twiss Green Lane, and the robbers drove off in a small dark car waiting for them with a possible part registration of PV03.
A blue, four-year-old Ford Fiesta parked be-hind the bank was to be used as a getaway car.
