An elderly postmistress was threatened with a stabbing by a robber who got away with £2,750 in cash and packs of cigarettes, a jury heard.

Yesterday, a jury at Oxford Crown Court heard that another man – Riegan Andrews – had already admitted his part in the robbery of the Post Office in sleepy Barford St Michael.

The defendant in the dock, James Barrie, said to have directed the getaway car to the North Oxfordshire village, denies involvement in the robbery – or blackmailing the woman who unwittingly drove the getaway vehicle.

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Opening the case against the 24-year-old, prosecutor Oliver Newman said it was the Crown’s case that Andrews, who came from Birmingham and did not know the area, ‘ended robbing an obscure village Post Office in the little village of Barford St Michael’ because he had been told of it by Barrie.

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The jurors heard that a friend of the pair – and the only driver in their circle – had received a call at around lunchtime on October 13, 2020, while she was at work, asking her to drive Andrews and Barrie.

They called back later after she had finished work and repeated their request, it was said.

“They were quite cross and they were shouting at me.

"They said ‘you need to hurry the “F” up,’” she told the jury.

She picked the pair up in Banbury before being given directions by Barrie, who was sitting in the back seat, the woman said.

The car was parked up on a corner in Barford St Michael, by a stone wall, and she said Barrie and Andrews got out the car and spoke together.

She said she was unable to hear what was said by the men.

Andrews disappeared while Barrie got back in the backseat, she said.

Asked whether the men told her why they had brought her to the village, she said: “They only mentioned they needed to collect some money off a friend or a lad.”

The Birmingham man returned to the corner and again spoke to Barrie outside the vehicle, the court was told.

He left then returned some five or 10 minutes later and sat on the back seat by Barrie, the driver told jurors. 

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It later emerged that Andrews had gone to the Post Office, been told it was shut then returned some time later asking for water.

When let in by the elderly postmistress he threatened to 'stab her, grabbed £2,750 in notes that were on the counter and also took some cigarettes', the court heard.

Giving evidence on Monday, the young driver said she took the two men back to Banbury by a different route, via Adderbury.

She said: “I asked Andrews what had happened to his hand because there were some cuts to his hand and why he was rushing, but I didn’t get an answer.”

The men were dropped off at Barrie’s sister’s flat.

She claimed to have seen Barrie with Andrews outside the property as the latter burned his clothing.

Later that night, she said four of them went to a pub – the Sun Inn in Hook Norton – where the two men paid for hotel rooms in cash.

She said Andrews had shown her cash and suggested it was a ‘couple of grand’.

The court was told she saw a post on Facebook a few days later and agreed with her friend that it looked like Andrews.

"How did you feel when you realised what had happened?" she was asked by Mr Newman. 

She replied: "Not great. I felt used.

"I felt guilty that I'd got into this situation." 

It was claimed that, both before and in the days after the robbery, Barrie made repeated demands for cash accompanied by threats - including to ‘blow-up’ the woman’s car.

In one text read to the jury, the defendant allegedly wrote: “Police will take your car and you will end up in jail for being Riegen’s getaway driver.”

Paramedics were called to her workplace on October 24 after she suffered a panic attack.

“They asked what had caused this panic attack and I told them everything because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”

She was taken to the police station and interviewed by officers, the court heard.

In cross-examination, she denied the suggestion that she had made up in court the claim most of Barrie’s threats were made in telephone calls rather than text messages, having previously told the prosecutor that they mostly spoke over text.

She told defence counsel Graeme Logan she could not recall crashing her car into a house next door to Barrie’s sister’s property, which it was suggested explained some messages in early October that mentioned money.

The woman maintained that she had not given the defendant money ‘willingly’.

Barrie, of Alma Road, Banbury, denies robbery and blackmail.

The trial continues.