Most people don't think of gangsters operating in the sedate streets of Worthing and Eastbourne.

But Carlon Robinson and Nolan Atkins attacked people they thought had connections with major league drug dealers, beat them and robbed them.

Praise is due to the police who captured these frightening villains before they killed.

But a district judge who refused to let police question the pair further at one stage, made a disgraceful decision.

Robinson and Atkins, who also operated in Brighton, inflicted terrible pain and injury on total strangers.

Police are comparing it to the sort of sick violence seen in Quentin Tarantino films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.

They relied on their victims not reporting the crimes because they had committed drug offences themselves.

But luckily, some of the people they attacked were brave enough to report them to the police.

The story of these savage villains, revealed in The Argus today, sounds almost unbelievable but sadly, it is all true.

Thanks to the police and the courage of some victims, these men will be behind bars for a long time.

But their story is a salutary warning that today's crooks are not cuddly, cartoon-style villains but evil, dangerous gangsters.