A MAN has admitted robbing a club employee of a £500 float shortly after she withdrew the money at a Post Office.

Gary Hill pleaded guilty to the charge of robbery when he appeared via video link from Durham Prison to a plea hearing at the city’s nearby crown court.

The 38-year-old defendant is alleged to have robbed the woman shortly after she left the Post Office in Horden with the cash, on February 16, before escaping the scene in a nearby waiting car.

Hill, of AJ Cook Terrace, Shotton Colliery, who also admitted the theft of chocolate bars from Co-op Stores, in nearby Easington Colliery, on the same day, will only be sentenced after the outcome of the trial of his alleged getaway driver following the robbery, his partner’s mother Marie Timney.

She denied a charge of robbery, as she claims she had no knowledge of Hill have committed the crime.

Mrs Timney, 54, of Plantation Avenue, Littletown, near Durham, was bailed to return for trial, with an estimated two-day length, starting on June 26.