A MAN who robbed a Birkenhead service station of more than £300 when armed and masked was jailed for six years.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Roy Clayton, a 'local hard man' in the Sale area of Greater Manchester where he lives, went into the Esso station in Green Lane, wearing a plastic bag with cut-out eyeholes over his head and wielding a two foot long car jack.

He threatened to hit a staff member with the jack and banged it on the counter while the victim emptied out the cash in coins from the till in the early hours of March 18.

But within minutes of leaving the scene he was approached by a police officer who thought he was acting suspiciously, and while speaking to him the officer received a message that there had been a robbery.

He claimed he had found the cash under a nearby bridge, where police later discovered the jack.

Judge Ian Crompton said the court had a duty to protect people at service stations and the sentence was intended to deter others.

Miss Rebecca Clark, defending, said that Clayton, who "is seen as a local hard man", had committed a cowardly offence.

"At the time he knew it was wrong, but he did not realise how wrong," she said.

Clayton, 35, of Chepstone Avenue, Sale, Greater Manchester, pleaded guilty to robbery.

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