Postmaster 'was in a fight for life'

Richard Watkins was alone in the store at Wolverley, near Kidderminster, when two men burst in.

In the fight which followed, the raider, 28-year-old Scott Griffiths, of Blaze Park, Wall Heath, was fatally stabbed, said Mr Richard Latham QC, prosecuting.

He was bundled into the getaway car by two accomplices and his body was found on the back seat when the car was abandoned.

The Wolverley raid was the culmination of a campaign of armed robbery by a Black Country gang, said Mr Latham.

Wayne Davies, aged 26, of Himley Road, and Michelle Sykes, 21, of Sudderley Gardens, both Dudley, Neal Frost, 33, of George Street, Wordsley, and Patrick Crane, 38, of no fixed address, deny conspiring to rob.

Davies and Frost also deny possessing a sawn-off shotgun.

The gang is alleged to have stolen nearly £30,000 in cash, jewellery worth more than £12,000, and other items in eight robberies last year.

The Watkins family had run the Post Office since 1962. Mr Watkins, who was in his 50s, usually kept a lock knife on the counter to cut the string on newspaper bundles.

At 10.15am on June 20 last year, he was confronted in the shop by two men, one masked and armed with a sawn-off shotgun. When he refused to do as they ordered, he was struck on the head with the gun, sustaining a wound which needed three stitches.

The gun was only a foot away from his face. "It hardly needs me to describe how that would feel," said Mr Latham.

"In a desperate bid for self-preservation, he decided to grab the gun. He reached for the knife on the counter while holding the weapon and stabbed out.

"There was a desperate life and death struggle."

The robber dropped the gun and was helped out by an accomplice. The raiders made off in a stolen Ford Sierra 4x4, which belonged to a police officer.

An anonymous 999 call was later made to report the condition of Scott Griffiths.

The trial is expected to last six weeks.