ARMED robbers used the same technique when targeting three Spar stores in and around the West Midlands, it was alleged at Worcester Crown Court.

The raiders waited until staff unlocked the rear doors of the shops in Tenbury Wells, Kinver and Dudley before bursting in with threats and violence.

Within three months, the gang netted more than £30,000 in cash, cigarettes and other property, said Richard Latham QC, prosecuting.

The series of raids ended on June 20 last year, he alleged, when there was an unsuccessful attempt to rob Wolverley Post Office.

Postmaster Richard Watkins fought back when confronted by an a masked raider armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

In the struggle which followed, 28-year-old Scott Griffiths, of Blaze Park, Wall Heath, was fatally stabbed and his body was later found in the back seat of a car abandoned near his home.

The trial of three men and a woman alleged to have been involved in nine raids between April and June last year is in its second week.

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, plead not guilty to conspiracy to rob.

Davies and Frost also deny having a sawn-off shotgun when committing an offence.

Sykes was arrested by police in Tenbury soon after the Spar store had been raided.

She told them that she had been "on the game" in Kidderminster.

After earning about £80 from three or four customers, she had gone into the country with a man in a red Peugeot 205.

After a drinking and drugs session, she claimed she was dumped in a row over money and had walked into Tenbury.

Interviewing officer, Det Con Paul Bent, agreed with her counsel, Mr Antonie Muller, that it was an unlikely story and he did not believe it.

The officer said that Sykes later told him that she had been dropped off in Tenbury by a boyfriend.

The trial is expected to last another three weeks.