A bungling getaway driver crashed into a brook after his accomplices staged a terrifying shop robbery in Redditch.

Alan Beamish borrowed his girlfriend's car for the crime - and was easily traced from the registration number.

Police were waiting for him when he arrived home with only one shoe on and soaked from the knees down from getting out of the stranded Rover and wading across the stream, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Beamish, aged 50, of Greystone Close, Church Hill South, pleaded guilty to robbery and to a burglary committed on a separate occasion.

He was remanded in custody by Judge John Cavell for sentence at a later date.

Two men wearing balaclavas over their faces got into the rear of T and M Retail Store in Matchborough Centre on October 28, said Andrew Evans, prosecuting.

They grabbed manager Ian Jeans, tied him up and left him face down on the floor.

One robber carried a heavy wrench and there was talk of a knife - although Mr Jeans did not see one.

The pair left the shop "with anything they could lay their hands on," said Mr Evans. The goods were stashed in bin bags.

But the early morning robbery quickly ran into trouble. Police, alerted to the scene, broke a window of the Rover as it was driven onto a housing estate. CS gas was also sprayed inside it.

The car lurched on across fields but was driven into a brook where police recovered it with the stolen property still on the back seat.

Mr Jeans was unable to identify the men who went into the shop and they are still being sought, said Mr Evans.

There was no evidence which showed Beamish had gone into the shop.

Footprints found there did not match his shoes.

But glass fragments from the broken Rover window matched splinters found in his fleece jacket.

William Rickarby, defending, said only one of the robbers joined Beamish in the getaway car. He reserved his mitigation until the day of sentence.