Three men caught red-handed raiding a pub minutes after they committed a smash-and-grab attack at a post office have each been jailed for a total of nine years.

CCTV footage of the trio hurling a rock though the door of the sub post office in Cross Roads, Keighley, before making off with the till was played at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

Police were at the scene of the crime, which took place just before 4am, when they were alerted to a burglary at the Three Acres pub, in Bingley Road, Keighley, about a mile away.

Officers attended and arrested Mark O’Hara, 40, of Woodhouse Way, Keighley, Paul Creasey, 26, of Woodhouse Avenue, Keighley, and Matthew Porter, 26, of no fixed address.

O’Hara was holding an axe and he and Creasey had screwdrivers.

All three pleaded guilty to burgling the post office and entering the pub as trespassers with intent to steal on June 8. Porter was jailed for an extra six months for breach of a suspended jail sentence for shoplifting and affray.

Prosecutor John Topham said sub post mistress Angela Armstrong and her family were sleeping above the shop when O’Hara hurled a rock through the glass door window.

Creasey kicked out the remnants of glass and Porter climbed in and seized the electronic till.

Investigating officers were at the post office when news came in of the raid at the Three Acres.Assistant manager Naomi Lazenby was sleeping in living quarters above the pub when the alarm went off at 4.40am. She turned on the CCTV to see three hooded men in the bar. She raised the alarm and hid upstairs.

When the police arrived, O’Hara, Creasey and Porter had put bottles of spirits and charity boxes in buckets, ready to make off with them.

O’Hara told them the axe, found by him at the pub, was to smash open a fruit machine.

Creasey told officers he had been on a heroin and alcohol “bender” and could recall little of the night.

O’Hara’s barrister, Kate Bisset, said he had been drinking. He dropped the axe when the police arrived.

Ian Howard, for Creasey, said he had found solace in the bottle after a fall-out with his girlfriend.

Nigel Hamilton, Porter’s barrister, said he had been about to start a plumbing course and was disappointed with himself.