THREE Romanian men who tried to steal from a Weymouth cashpoint have been jailed.

Petre Ionita, Elvis Dinu and Gioni Faur all appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court to be sentenced after admitting attempted theft from a meter or automated machine and going equipped for theft.

Carlyon Branford-Wood, prosecuting, told the court how Jaime Bacon was in the queue for the cashpoint outside Barclays in Weymouth town centre on July 15 and was behind the three men.

The defendants all crowded around the machine so Mrs Bacon couldn’t see what they were doing.

When they left she attempted to withdraw £70 from the machine but despite the words ‘take your card, your cash will follow’ appearing on the screen the money did not appear.

Miss Branford-Wood said a friend who she was with put her fingernails in behind the slot where the money would have come out and found a strip had been inserted, which was silver on one side and sticky plastic on the other.

Mrs Bacon, who eventually got her money back, contacted the police and the three men were arrested in King Street later that same day in their car, where a bag containing six strips similar to the one used at the Barclays cashpoint was also found.

Miss Branford-Wood said Ionita, of Delamere Road, Manchester, had been jailed for 16 months earlier this year for an offence of conspiracy to commit theft that also involved the placing of devices on cash strips.

He was still on licence for that offence at the time he came to Weymouth.

Tim Shorter, mitigating for 25-year-old Ionita, said: “He came to the UK with good intentions to get a job to support his family in Romania.

“That clearly has not always been the case although he has worked when he has been able to.”

Robert Pawson – representing 26-year-old Dinu, also of Delamere Road, Manchester – said his client had worked for three years as a low-paid builder and expressed ‘genuine remorse’ for his actions.

Faur, 23, of Arnside Street, Moss Side, Manchester, had only recently arrived in the country and initially claimed he had just acted as a lookout.

However, his barrister Richard Griffiths said: “He accepts they were all in it together.”

Judge Samuel Wiggs sentenced Ionita to six months in prison and the other two defendants to four months.