A convicted robber who was once involved in a getaway chase leading to the death of a policeman has been jailed for 20 years for a revenge shooting.

Austin Anti-Taylor, of Oak Lodge Avenue, Chigwell, was 19 when he took part in a honeytrap robbery, which ended in a high-speed pursuit that left PC Gary Toms dead in April 2009.

The 37-year-old firearms officer stepped out of a police van to chase the raiders on foot when their Chrysler PT Cruiser was boxed into a cul-de-sac Ashlin Road, Leyton.

He hit his head on a kerb when the van reversed to continue the pursuit and died in hospital six days later.

The vehicle, fraudulently obtained by the driver Temitope Iyiola days earlier, only stopped when it crashed head-on with another squad car, injuring other officers.

Iyiola, then 19, was jailed for 10 years after admitting dangerous driving.

Anti-Taylor, one of those arrested after the police chase, was given seven years in a young offenders' institution for robbery after a trial in December 2009, but was released in 2013.

However, last week Snaresbrook Crown Court heard Anti-Taylor set out on a revenge mission on November 15 2016, after he had been shot days earlier.

He and Mikel Obenson, 27 armed themselves with two shotguns and made their way to Manor Park in a stolen Volkswagen Golf.

Gunshots were fired and police patrolling the area rushed to the scene where they arrested has Obenson.

A 12-bore full length pump-action shotgun and a Belgian .410 calibre, single-barrelled folding shotgun were found inside the stolen car.

Anti-Taylor fled but was later apprehended when DNA evidence linked him to the Golf.

The judge Mr Recorder Robert Rhodes, QC, jailed Anti-Taylor for 20 years and sentenced Obenson to 12 years behind bars.

The judge said: “On November 7 last year you, Mr Anti-Taylor, were shot. You refused to co-operate with the police and decided to take your own revenge.

“And looking at that revenge carefully, you were the man behind it, you used a stolen car that you had bought, you got two pump action shotguns, one that had been sawn off.

“On the 15 November about a week after you were shot you drove the car to Manor Park where you found that the guns and ammunition were loaded.

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

PC Gary Toms was killed in a persuit Anti-Taylor was inolved in during 2009

“At trial you clearly disputed that, but I see that you admitted to being in the car.

“I am satisfied that you, Mr Obenson, fired the sawn off shot gun, the evidence suggesting that you fired it twice.

“Mr Anti-Taylor you managed to get away and you, Mr Obenson, were caught at the scene.”

Joanna Staples, for Anti-Taylor, said he was a capable, erudite and intelligent man who could have a bright future.

She added: “Any sentence will be of substantial length. There is no getting around that. What risk does Mr Anti-Taylor, as a man in his later thirties, pose upon release?

“The court have to see whether or not if he would be at serious risk to those around him.

“Before he was 19 years old he had not been convicted of any offence, therefore, the opportunity to commit crime in his youth was not taken up”.

The judge told Anti-Taylor: “I am of the firm opinion that an extended sentence is necessary to protect the public. The minimum sentence I can pass is a sentence of 20 years.”

Sentencing Obenson, the Judge said: 'As far as you are concerned Mr Obenson, I find that you were brought into this. But you did so enthusiastically and willingly.

“I reject your counsel's submission that you did not fire the gun offensively, it clearly was.”

Anti-Taylor denied but was convicted of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, one count of possessing a firearm without a firearm certificate, one count of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and one count of possessing a prohibited firearm.

He admitted one count of possessing criminal property.

Obenson, of Greenham Drive, Thamesmead, denied but was convicted of the same five charges.

Following the death of PC Toms in 2009 a Met investigation found it could not prove Iyiola was “sufficiently responsible” for causing his by dangerous driving.

Iyiola admitted dangerous driving but was later convicted of robbery along with Austin Anti-Taylor, 19, and Mary Fowler, 21, following a trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

Jailing Iyiola for 10 years, Judge Wendy Joseph QC had described his driving as “gratuitous and terrible”.

University of East London student Fowler, who acted as a honey trap to set up the robbery of her former boss Onyedika Chukwuma, was jailed for eight years.