“They knew what they were doing” is a jewellery shop owner’s conclusion after an armed gang smashed their way into his shop and stole almost £250,000 worth of gold.

Raj Sadheura, of Asha, High Road, Seven Kings, said he was relieved after the ten strong Romanian gang was jailed for a combined 82 years.

The gang stashed their haul in a ditch alongside railways lines as part of a violent crime spree across the capital.

Mr Sadheura said: “I was surprised and we were all very pleased with the verdict. The gang was involved in robberies elsewhere so it was a big thing for the police that they had to catch them.”

He said that none of the family went to the court hearing as it was too traumatic, but they had watched the CCTV images again.

“We looked at the video once they had been put away and it makes you relive it again,” Mr Sadheura said.

“They must have been in here before or sent someone in here scouting as they went for all the cases with heavy goods inside. They knew what they were doing.”

He said that he felt relieved after the gang was caught and his family would continue to be jewellers.

“It’s relief. We have always been jewellers,” he added. “We can’t sit idle doing nothing.

Speaking at the Old Bailey, trial judge Timothy Pontius said none of the gang had done an “honest day’s work” and had come to the UK specifically to commit crime.

The shop’s CCTV shows a man wearing a flat cap repeatedly wiping his feet while holding open the first of two security doors.

Four men in balaclavas then storm their way in, breaking down the second security door with a sledgehammer. One smashes the glass display cabinets while his accomplices load the haul into bags.

Mr Sadheura added: “The police said these people were living rough in Romford somewhere. The police kept us informed with what was going on – they were really on their toes.”

The gang escaped through a pre-cut hole in the fence alongside the railway lines opposite the jewellery shop.

They then changed their clothes before making their way back through the fence.

On searching the area, police found clothes and jewellery buried in pre-dug trenches.

The robbery, in April last year, resulted in the gang being sentenced to a total of 82 years on Thursday.

Judge Pontius said: “All will be deported, and rightly so. These are all relatively young men who came to this country to rob.”

The gang were caught by specialist police unit the flying squad after an investigation into other robberies in London.

Det Ch Insp Ian Corner, from the Flying Squad, said: “These were violent armed robberies during which innocent members of staff were terrorised and genuinely feared for their lives.”