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This is the dramatic moment two gangsters who were sprung at gunpoint from a security van escorting them to court.

Stevie McMullen, 32, has been jailed for 25 years and Ryan MacDonald, 21, should serve 20 years for "orchestrating" the break-out.

They were being sentenced along with 11 other members of a gang at Minshull Crown Court in Manchester.

The pair escaped as they were being transported through Salford from a prison a year ago, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Shocked rush-hour motorists were threatened with an axe and told to back off while the front windscreen of the van was smashed before a terrified security guard was ordered to open the cells.

MacDonald fled as a pillion passenger on board a stolen Yamaha R1 motorcycle while McMullen and other gang members fled in a Saab, the court heard.

McMullen was taken to a safehouse in Bolton and later fled to Spain.

Police later released dramatic CCTV footage of the attack on the prison van as part of a huge manhunt. McMullen was eventually arrested in Spain a year later.

The court was told escape plot started to unravel when police found the jacket and mobile phone of the man who had ridden the Yamaha motorbike away from Salford. Analysis of the phone led police to identify the biker and ten other gang members.

While in prison, cocaine addict McMullen, a father, and McDonald had access to "a variety of sim cards and mobile phone handsets", a court heard.

Police established that one handset was used as ‘the escape phone’ and analysis of calls led them to other gang members.

Before he was sprung, McMullen had been due at Manchester Crown Court charged with conspiracy to rob while MacDonald was due to be sentenced for unconnected offences of conspiracy to commit robbery.

"This was a well-organised sophisticated conspiracy orchestrated from inside prison with the use of illegally held mobile phones," said Crown prosecutor Kim Whittlestone. "The conspiracy was organised by both Stevie McMullen and Ryan MacDonald. They each recruited their close criminal associates to put into action their plan to escape."

The pair were sprung from the van as it made its way along Regent Road in Salford from HMP Altcourse, Merseyside, on April 30.

The gang was armed with a pistol, a shotgun, a sledgehammer, crowbar, hatchet and hammer.

McMullen, of no fixed abode, was convicted of conspiracy to escape, conspiracy to possess an imitation firearm, conspiracy to rob, conspiracy to kidnap and arson.

MacDonald, also of no fixed abode, was convicted of conspiracy to escape and conspiracy to possess an imitation firearm. While he was on the run he was jailed for seven years and ten months for a series of robberies.

The sentencing continues.