JAILED: Man caught red-handed with £5k cash

The cash - seized during a raid on a Darlaston post office - was covered in tell tale dye, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

It was found in a bag being collected by Lee Cotterill from the Wolverhampton home of a man suspected of having been involved in the robbery that had taken place two days earlier on March 3, revealed Mr Justin Jarmola, prosecuting.

The 28-year-old defendant maintained that he knew the money was 'dodgy' but did not realise it was part of the haul from the post office raid.

He claimed to have been asked to look after the cash for a 'couple of hours' but police swooped before he could leave the address with it. "I knew it was dodgy because my friend was dodgy but I had only had it for ten minutes when they came," insisted Cotterill, who had three previous convictions for handling stolen property.

He was not suspected of taking part in the raid but his fingerprints were on the bag in which the £4,850 stolen money was discovered along with some of his possessions.

Mr David Iles, defending, conceded: "He was warehousing stolen cash."

Cotterill, from Clare Avenue, Ashmore Park, admitted handling stolen goods and was jailed for 18 months by Judge Stephen Eyre QC who said:

"You were not a party to the robbery and did not know, in terms, that the money you were handling was the proceeds of a robbery but you realised it was dodgy. You were helping to keep it out of the hands of the authorities and the police happened to arrive before you were able to leave with the bag. In addition to that you had three previous convictions for handling stolen property, the last of which was just a year before this offence."

The post office robber was dealt with on a different occasion and jailed.