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Oxfordshire Post Office robber faces years inside prison
James Barrie, 24, had denied involvement in either the robbery of the Post Office in sleepy Barford St Michael or blackmailing their driver.
But jurors at Oxford Crown Court took little more than three hours to unanimously convict him of both charges.
READ MORE: Prosecution outlines allegations against James Barrie
Remanding him in custody to return to court in August, Recorder John Bate-Williams said on Thursday (June 15): “You’ve been convicted unanimously of both counts one and two; of robbery and the blackmail matters.
“The robbery was a serious robbery with the threat of force against an 89-year-old woman.
“I don’t see anything else but a custody sentence in this case.”
His provisional view of the case was that the starting point was four years’ imprisonment, with a range of three to six years, he said.
Opening the case against Barrie earlier this week, prosecutor Oliver Newman said another man – Riegan Andrews – had admitted being the mask-wearing robber who went into the Post Office on the afternoon of October 13, 2020, and threatened to stab the postmistress.
Andrews, who had returned to the shop asking for water some five to 10 minutes after being told they were shut, walked out with £2,750-worth of bank notes that were being tallied up on the counter, as well as a handful of cigarette packets.
Mr Newman said it was the prosecution’s contention Andrews, who came from Birmingham and did not know the area, ‘ended robbing an obscure village Post Office in the little village of Barford St Michael’ because he had been told of it by Barrie.
They were driven there by a friend of Barrie’s girlfriend, who described seeing the defendant and Andrews talking together outside her car before the Birmingham man disappeared round the corner.
“They only mentioned they needed to collect some money off a friend or a lad,” she told jurors earlier this week.
She dropped the men back at Barrie’s sister’s flat, where she saw Andrews setting fire to his clothing.
Later that night, she stayed at a hotel with the pair and another woman – claiming to have been shown a wad of cash by Andrews, who she said told her it was a ‘couple of grand’.
The woman claimed that the defendant had repeatedly made threats to ‘blow up her car’, harm her family and tell the police about her role in driving Andrews away from the scene of the robbery.
Prosecutors said the threats were part of a plan by the defendant to blackmail the woman into handing over hundreds of pounds.
Barrie, of Alma Road, Banbury, will return to court on August 15 for sentencing.
