A man who blew up an ATM on a forecourt, while the 24-hour site’s manager was in the premises, has been sentenced to six years in prison.

The attack occurred in the early hours of March 4 when Mason Lindsay, along with another man who has not been identified, used several gas canisters to blow up the cash machine at the Esso filling station in High Street, Oxted.

Lindsay, 22, pleaded guilty to causing an explosion likely to injure life or cause serious injury or damage to property, and to attempting to steal cash from an ATM.

He appeared at Guildford Crown Court to be sentenced on Thursday July 20, and the court was told he had 32 previous convictions which spanned more than a decade.

He was sentenced to six years in prison for causing the explosion, and one year for the attempted theft – which would run concurrently. He will serve two-thirds of his sentence in jail, with an extra four years on licence, and was also ordered to pay a £170 victim surcharge.

Shortly after the attack the site manager, who asked not to be named, told the Surrey Mirror he was working in the back office of the garage when he heard a loud noise.

He said: “I was doing paperwork when I heard a large bang. It was like a bomb had gone off.

“I thought something might have exploded in the garage. I went out to the cash desk and saw two people running away towards the pub.”

The manager had played back CCTV footage of the incident, and said: “I saw them on the CCTV carrying two big gas cylinders, one was red and one was white.

“It was two big, built and tall men, they were wearing balaclavas and hoodies and gloves. All dark colours, grey and black.

“It looked like they were wiring something to the cash machine, there were wires or pipes or something which they put down around the machine and off to the side.

“Then they lit it like a fuse, and you could see it moving like some old fashioned movie with a dynamite explosion.

“Then it blew up and the front came off, they came back towards it after and then just ran away.”