THE gang behind an armed raid on their local bookmaker’s shop during the Ebor race week were today all behind bars.

In just 24 seconds, hoodie Matthew Brereton, with a scarf covering his face, held up assistant manager Paul Hyndman at gunpoint, forced him to empty the tills and part of a safe and escaped with his loot, York Crown Court heard.

“I knew I was in danger, I feared for my life,” Mr Hyndman said in a police statement read to the jury.

“I was so frightened for my life, I wanted to give the youth the money so he would leave and not shoot me.”

Helen Hendry, prosecuting, said that after leaving the Coral shop in Beckfield Lane, Acomb, Brereton met up with lookouts Daniel Brian Moore and Luke Wayne McKnight and shared the cash.

Like him, they live within a mile of the bookmakers, and CCTV had captured them checking it out in the hours leading up to the raid. Moore had kept in telephone contact with the gunman, including a call less than a minute before the raid itself.

“They did not go into the bookmaker’s with a gun and brandish it in the way Brereton did, but they were part of the team who were about robbery that day,” said Mrs Hendry.

Brereton, 33, of Fawkes Drive, Acomb, pleaded guilty to robbery and having a firearm or imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence. McKnight, 19, of Woodlea Avenue, Acomb, and Moore, 23, of Danebury Drive, Acomb, both denied robbery, but were convicted by a York jury after a three-day trial. After the verdict, they joined Brereton in prison to await sentence.

Det Con Cheryl Webster who led the police investigation, said she was delighted with the verdict.

Mrs Hendry said the robbers got £500 from their raid on August 20, the first day of last year’s rained-off Ebor meeting. Moore claimed that Brereton’s phone calls were about his efforts to get work again as a slaughterman and not about robbery. He denied being a lookout and that his visit to the bookmakers on August 20 had been to put a bet on for his mother. But he had left without betting because his mother’s tip had been for the abandoned meeting.

McKnight did not give evidence. He had told police after his arrest that he had disposed of some of Brereton’s clothing and been paid £50 to do so, but he had only known about the robbery after it happened.