A MAN who was part of a shotgun robbery at a Wirral off-licence was last week starting an eight-year jail sentence.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Anthony Fielding was arrested after his girlfriend tried to use some of the stolen savings stamps taken in the raid on another off-licence in the same chain.

Fielding, aged 24, now living in Long Lane, Wavertree, pleaded guilty to robbery, theft and two charges of taking a motor vehicle without consent.

Mr James Rae, prosecuting, told the court that Fielding was one of two balaclavered men who carried out the raid on Cellar 5 in Wellington Road, Oxton, at 9.40pm on Saturday, February 8.

Counter assistant June Sherlock and manageress Susan Collins were in the stockroom when Mrs Collins noticed one of the men holding the gun, which was pointed at the other woman.

The gunman ordered the manageress to open the safe and the other man emptied £180 cash, more than £7,000 in Manweb electricity cards and £206-worth of Cellar 5 saving stamps into a plastic bag.

Both men ran to a nearby car and its registration number was noted by Mrs Sherlock.

That car had been taken from outside the Tudor Rose Hotel at Ledsham and was found abandoned near the Westbourne pub in Birkenhead 35 minutes after the raid.

Two £500 CD systems had been taken from the vehicle, together with £160 worth of compact discs, and Fielding's fingerprints were found in the vehicle.

Six days after the raid, Fielding's co-habitee, Kirstie Burton, aroused suspicion when she tried to use a book of the savings stamps at a Cellar 5 in Hoylake Road, Birkenhead.

Five days later police made a forced entry at a flat in Gratton Road, Birkenhead, where Fielding and his girlfriend were then living.

They found five live shotgun cartridges in a drawer in the bedroom, two meter cards and seven Lottery scratchcards which came from the raid, he said.

As the four police officers were leaving, one saw Fielding in a private hire taxi.

They followed it into Elmswood Road, where the taxi stopped and Fielding ran off. He was arrested in a nearby outhouse.

The haul of Manweb cards was found the same morning in a search of the flat of Scott Burton, Kirstie Burton's brother, said Mr Rae.

Mr Ian Harris, defending, said that Fielding had been the getaway driver and not the gunman.

He had wanted to plead guilty to avoid the two women from the off licence having the worry of a trial in the New Year, he said.

Kirstie Burton, 20, of King Street, Wallasey, who has admitted handling stolen goods and attempting to obtain property by deception, and Scott Burton, of Taylor Street, Preston, who has admitted handling stolen goods and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, will be sentenced at a later date.

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