NOTHING has been the same since the Three Maids HillMob attempted the then-biggest ever cash robbery on a security van near Winchester in 1994.

The gang from Southampton was snared by detectives using a new technique - mobile phone records.

The bungling robbers had attempted to steal £11.4m from the van they hijacked on the A34.

Their crime had been as audacious in its idea as incompetent in its execution.

The oxyacetylene cutting equipment they used to try to cut into the armoured vehicle was designed for underwater use. It was too powerful and set fire to £1m in cash and the gang was forced to flee empty-handed - one on the back of a local teenager's Suzuki 50cc moped.

But their biggest mistake, and one that opened up a huge new field for detectives, was that they used their own mobile phones during the raid.

The gang, travelling in several cars, telephoned the van on a mobile phone and told the crew that there was a bomb underneath. The convoy of robbers and the Securicor van then snaked quietly to a country lane near Crawley.

Hampshire police were able to link several defendants to the crime. With painstaking work the officers trawled mobile phone records to see whomade what call, when, and crucially, where.

They looked through thousands of records and, with the help of phone companies, were able to pinpoint the calls.

Unknown to the criminals then, the police were able to fix the time, length and crucially the exact location of every call made.

In the early 1990s mobile phones, whilst not widespread, were becoming relatively cheap and increasingly common. But many criminals were unaware they were inadvertently leaving an incriminating trail.

The police were elated that the mobile phone records had helped secure the convictions. But one detective told the Daily Echo at the time: "We are worried this case will teach lessons to lots of professional villains.

Particularly about mobile phones.

These were only part-timers."

Criminals now use pay-as-you-go' phones, which, if they are disposed of, are less likely to be traced.

Four members of the gang were jailed for a total of 40 years. One was later freed on appeal. Two others were acquitted during the two-month trial.