A SOLDIER who said he was forced to carry out a robbery, in which he used a machete to threaten a security guard and relieve him of £20,000, yesterday secured a reduction in his jail term.

Paul William Chirnside, 27, of New York Road, North Shields, North Tyneside, was jailed for six years at Newcastle Crown Court in November, after he admitted robbery.

London's Criminal Appeal Court yesterday agreed with submissions made by his barrister, Brian Mark, that the sentence was too long, and cut it to four-and-a-half years.

Mr Justice Hughes, sitting with Mr Justice Walker, noted the guilty plea and the accepted the "unusual" circumstances in which the offence was committed.

Chirnside pleaded guilty on the basis he had been forced to carry out the robbery by a man to whom he had fallen into debt as a result of his drug addiction.

Mr Justice Hughes said the Crown and the judge accepted the basis of his guilty plea, so he stood to be sentenced as being a "subsidiary offender, recruited and operating on instructions and under threat, even though he exposed himself voluntarily to the risk".

At the time of the robbery, last June, Chirnside was on leave and heavily abusing alcohol and cocaine.

Two security guards were delivering £20,000 in a box to a North Tyneside supermarket. As the money was being carried to the store, Chirnside appeared carrying a large machete. He demanded the box, took it and ran to a waiting car. The money was never recovered.