A RISING athletics star is starting a four-year jail term after taking part in a string of armed robberies across north London.

Olu Oyewobi, 18, was one of five members of a gang who stole more than £50,000 from cash-in-transit vans in a three-month period last year.

The Leyton resident had been one of the top competitors for Enfield and Haringey Athletics Club, and an outside bet for the Olympics in 2012.

But after admitting his role in three robberies, Oyewobi was jailed for four years at Wood Green Crown Court yesterday.

The gang were led by 18-year-old Harold Mack, who pleaded guilty to carrying out seven robberies and attempted robberies between August 11 and November 28 last year.

Mack and Oyewobi first knocked a security guard to the ground and snatched an empty cashbox outside NatWest in Southgate on August 11.

They tried again on September 22, getting away with £10,244 after a struggle on an industrial estate in Walthamstow.

Five days later, the pair enlisted Glodie Nzau, 19, of Copperfield Drive, Tottenham and Reece Henry, 16, of Fairbourne Road, Tottenham, and tried to rob a Post Office van.

However, just before the gang struck, the driver sensed the danger and drove away, flagging down a passing police car and Nzau was arrested.

Mack carried out four more robberies in Green Lanes, Wood Green, Tottenham, and Stamford Hill, getting away with more than £38,000.

On October 28, he and Shaddai Smith, 20, of Dagenham, attacked and robbed a security guard in Hale Road, Tottenham, and fled the scene in an Alfa Romeo which belonged to Smith.

He denied taking part in the robbery, but was convicted by a jury after trial.

Mack, of no fixed address, was jailed for nine years, Nzau, who also pleaded guilty, was jailed for two years and three months, Smith denied one count of conspiracy to rob and was jailed for three years, and Henry also pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Corner, from the Met's Flying Squad, said: "These individuals were part of an organised and determined criminal network that attacked custodians from the cash-in-transit industry going about their lawful business putting both them and the general public in fear.

"The outcome of this investigation represents a determined effort by Flying Squad officers and our partners in the cash in transit industry, to apprehend those responsible, and bring them to justice.”