A vicious gang who terrorised the rich and famous in a series of brutal robberies have received long jail sentences.
The five-strong gang who threatened to mutilate petrified victims in their homes in midnight raids were each given indeterminate sentences and told they were "a significant risk" of causing serious injury to the public.
Judge Charles Welchman, sitting at Kingston Crown Court, in south west London, told the gang: "The victims feared for their lives and that of family members. On one occasion there was an implicit threat of rape on one of them and to cut off an ear and someone else's fingers."
He continued: "It was clear that the robbers had good intelligence. They also relied on and had personal information about their victims' families as part of the psychological campaign when they had their victims in their power."
The gang carried out six robberies between July 2005 and January last year where they picked on homes in the stockbroker belt on the borders of London and Kent.
More than £1 million of valuables, including jewellery, cash, plasma televisions and luxury cars, were stolen.
In one chilling raid, mirroring the torture scene from Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs, they started slicing off a victim's ear to make him reveal the code to his safe. Another raid saw a man threatened that he would have his fingers cut off. They also told a woman, who was alone in her house, that she was going to be raped.
Victims were often bound and gagged as the armed villains ransacked their homes.
The gang were told they will serve at least 23 years in total before being considered for parole. If released they will be on license for the rest of their lives.
The gang are: Denny Cummings, 29, of Vartry Road, north London; Vincent Bellamy, 30, of Old Ford Road, east London; Daniel London, 43, of Welling, Kent; Robert Talbot of Farnborough, Kent and his brother Adam Talbot, 19, of Chislehurst, Kent. They were all charged with conspiracy to rob six addresses.
