A VILLAGE post master feared he and his wife would be shot by a gun-toting robber demanding money from the safe, a jury heard yesterday.

John Garforth told how the raider pretended to faint or suffer a heart attack to lure his wife from behind the security area at Burley-in-Wharfedale sub-Post Office shortly after opening time on May 19 last year.

When Patricia Garforth rushed to help the man, who had seemingly collapsed on the shop floor, he immediately leapt to his feet and pushed her over in a scuffle to get behind the glass screen.

In a statement read to the jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday, Mr Garforth said the robber produced a black handgun and demanded the safe be opened. The weapon had liquid issuing from the barrel that the couple thought might be a corrosive substance.

Mr Garforth described the robber as a light-skinned Asian man in his twenties, of slight build, and disguised in a bushy black wig, beard and moustache fashioned from black electrical tape, and false “horror” teeth.

He wore dark gloves, light-coloured trousers and a black coat and had with him a brown box and a black umbrella.

The man seized £1,800 in bank notes and coins from the cash tray but could not steal from the safe because it was on a time lock.

Mr Garforth suffered a cut finger struggling with the robber and Mrs Garforth sustained a badly bruised arm when she was knocked against the safe.

Mr Garforth said his wife was shocked and shaken and the couple feared they would be shot or burned by corrosive fluid from the gun.

Eder Ruiz, 25, formerly of Queen’s Court, Station Road, Otley, denies robbing Mr and Mrs Garforth with an imitation firearm, namely a water pistol designed to look like a gun.

Mrs Garforth, who assisted her husband at the Post Office, told how she rushed to help the man, thinking he had been taken ill.

After she was knocked to the ground, she closed metal money drawers with her foot to stop him getting cash out of them.

Mrs Garforth told the police she was terrified during the robbery, knowing the man was capable of violence because he had pushed her to the ground.

Prosecutor Anthony Moore said that a piece of black tape fell from the robber’s face during the struggle.

It was recovered by the police from the Post Office floor, but was not a match to the defendant.

Ruiz, now living in Manchester, was arrested in a routine vehicle check and denied any involvement in the robbery.

He said he was driving between Manchester and Leeds where he was due at the city’s magistrates court to pay an outstanding fine.

The trial continues.

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