THESE are the shocking scenes as masked rioters ransacked two banks in Birmingham city centre as gangs of looters ran amok.

Footage released by West Midlands Police shows the crowd first smash their way into the Halifax, on New Street, before wrenching a cash machine from its fixing in the nearby branch of Santander.

Police have now called on the readers of the Birmingham Post & Mail to help identify the yobs.

The incident happened at about 10pm on Monday August 8, the first and most destructive night of violence.

A crowd of about 30 people can be seen rushing the doors of the Halifax, near Victoria Square.

Moments later, they moved to the nearby Santander where a heavily built man, who appeared to be at the centre of the crowd, attacks the cash machine.

Within minutes the crowd scatter as the police charged along the debris-strewn streets.

Officers are now involved in the slow and painstaking work of examining thousands of hours of CCTV footage of the violence that swept through the city last week.

More than 300,000 people have visited the ‘Wanted Gallery’ on the West Midlands Police website since it was launched last Tuesday and detectives stressed their role was vital in identifying offenders.

Det Chief Insp Steven Reed, from Force CID, said: “We are working around the clock to trawl CCTV footage in an attempt to identify suspects and I would urge people to continue to work with us to help bring offenders to justice.

“The response has been fantastic and we have only been able to arrest so many people as a direct result of the information we have received from the public.”

A total of 509 people have been arrested.

Of those 135 people have been charged in connection with the disorder.

A total of 57 have been remanded in custody, six convicted, sentenced and released and 16 bailed.

Anyone with information about the identities of anyone involved in the disorder in the footage should call police on 0345 113 5000 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.