A GETAWAY driver who helped to convict two armed robbers has been spared jail by a judge.

Jonathan Caley was thanked by Judge Peter Bowers for his services to the community in giving evidence for the prosecution and given a two-year suspended prison sentence.

Teesside Crown Court heard how 25-year-old Caley, from Middlesbrough, was living in fear of reprisals after he agreed to become a protected witness against Peter George Caswell and Shane Round.

Caley had driven a Volkswagen Jetta car used by Caswell and Round to escape from a robbery they carried out at Thornaby Ex-Servicemen's Club on Teesside.

A sawn-off shotgun was used to threaten staff at the club during the raid in May last year in which £3,479 was taken from a safe.

Caswell, 52, of The Crescent, Middlesbrough, and Round, 31, of Springfield Road, Middlesbrough, were jailed for 11 years and seven and-a-half years respectively earlier this month.

Yesterday, Sean Dodds, prosecuting, read from a statement in which Caley described how Caswell had used the butt of the shotgun to hit the back of his head while the men escaped in the car, which was later recovered by police.

In a statement, Caley said: "I was terrified. I had two lunatics in the back of my car telling me to drive so I drove."

Rod Hunt, for Caley, who admitted assisting an offender, said the Crown had accepted that Caley did not know the two men planned to commit a robbery until it was too late.

He said his client was now under continued threat of violence from the criminal underworld in Middlesbrough.

Judge Bowers said: "You live in constant fear of reprisals and I am quite sure that if I were to send you to prison you would not be safe and would probably be attacked."

The judge, who said Caley would be placed under supervision for the next two years, said he was already living in fear of Round at the time of the offence and had been involved with the two robbers because of their drug addictions.