Oxford Crown Court heard that the unemployed heroin addict had previously been jailed for five years in 1994 for a similar raid on a post office.

The jury took just over two-and-a-half hours to convict Forrest, who had denied robbery and possessing an imitation weapon while committing an offence.

The court heard Forrest, 29, carried out the masked raid at the Allday's store in Bassett Avenue, Bicester, last year, forcing two female workers to hand over more than £300 cash at gunpoint. One of the women, Karen Cutts, wept as she told the jury of the ordeal. "I was scared stiff," she said. "I could not go back to work and had to take sleeping pills. I was just a wreck."

Richard Jones, defending, claimed Forrest, a long-term heroin addict and dealer, had been framed for the robbery so others could take over his drugs business.

Sentencing him, Judge Anthony King said Forrest had carried out a terrifying robbery on two vulnerable women and only a substantial custodial sentence could be justified.

Story date: Friday 04 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.