A robber who held up a woman in the village post office at Pirton near Hitchin after stealing a car was jailed for eight years today (Friday, March 15).

Trevor Dowling, 42, pointed an imitation gun at the stomach of the victim and manhandled her before escaping with £300 from the till.

Dowling was on Luton’s Marsh Farm estate on the afternoon of Sunday, August 27, 2022, when he saw a delivery driver leave his door unlocked with keys in the ignition.

The judge at Luton Crown Court said he was seen on CCTV acting in a “breathtakingly quick way” to get in and drive off.

The father-of thirteen went home and collected a black jacket to cover his neck tattoos before driving to the post office.

He put on a black baseball cap and a Covid mask before bursting into the rural and isolated shop, where the woman was working in the stock room.

Dowling grabbed and pushed her around, pressing a BB gun to her stomach. When he realised the post office safe was empty he snatched £300 from the cash drawer. He drove back to Luton, dumping the car near his home.

Hertfordshire police arrested him in Beeston, Leeds, on Saturday, October 1, 2022. The gun was found under the mattress of one of his children.

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Prosecutor Peter Pride said the woman victim said she had never been so scared. She had to leave her job and suffered night terrors.

Mr Pride said: “He wore a Covid mask, a baseball cap and a jacket over his neck to conceal his tattoos.

“The victim was a vulnerable, lone shopkeeper in a remote rural post office.”

Dowling, from Copenhagen Close in Luton, was convicted by a jury of robbery and possession of an imitation firearm. He pleaded guilty to theft of a motor vehicle. He had 29 convictions for 95 offences, none of them were for robbery.

Defending, Gabrielle Compton said Dowling had had a drug problem for the majority of his life. She said he had begun sniffing glue at the age of five and by fourteen was taking crack.

She said he was sorry for taking the car and was aware of what the robbery victim had gone through.

There had been periods when he was clean. He had been working as a roofer but when he lost his job turned back to drugs.

“His priority on release is to remain clean and rebuild his life. He has 13 children,” she said.

Recorder Alex Young told him that the victim would have believed the BB gun was real. He said he had chosen the post office because it was rural and isolated.

The judge told him: “The experience was incredibly frightening for her [the robbery victim]. It had a vast impact. She could not continue working there and sought different employment. In the month that followed she had night terrors and the incident still preys on her mind.”