The gang targeted post offices across northern England

Barry Twyford and two other men, from Middlesex and Hampshire, were sent to prison for more than two years each, at a court in London on Friday.

The gang targeted post offices in northern England to cash false cheques in what the court heard was a "carefully planned" operation.

Police were tipped off by a postmaster in West Yorkshire after he became suspicious about one of the cheques the gang tried to cash.

Judge Roderick Wood told Wood Green Crown Court the gang's operation was "carefully and systematically executed".

Twyford, 45, of West Drive, Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire, Ronald Mattock, of Winchester, and Angola-born Nlele Quivuila, from Enfield, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud.

'Driven by greed'

Prosecutor Richard Gray said: "The Crown has no knowledge whatsoever as to how, why, or at whose invitation these defendants involved themselves in the conspiracy.

"It...netted [them] a little in excess of �170,000."

Twyford and Quivuila, 38, of St Stephen's Road, Enfield, were both jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Mattock, 52, of Thurmond Crescent, Stanmore, received a sentence of two years three months.

Before sentencing the men the judge told them they had been "driven by greed" and their actions were a "brazen fraud on the public purse".