THREE men were jailed yesterday for robbing a North-East bakery.

Kelvin Bennison, 19, of Burnmoore Close, and Paul Bytheway, 24, of Kent Close, both Redcar, east Cleveland, and Daniel Shotton, 19, of Eskdale Road, Grangetown, Teesside, admitted robbing the B&G Bakery, Redcar, on February 24 this year.

Grahame Gaston, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court that Amanda Holmes was working in the shop on her own when Bennison and Shotton came in to buy some food and lager.

Later that evening she was in the back of the shop, he said, when she heard people coming in and was confronted by a man wearing a stocking over his head and holding a baseball bat. This person, Mr Gaston, said, was Bytheway.

He said Miss Holmes recognised the others as Shotton and Bennison. Shotton was carrying what she thought was a bat, but was later found to be a knife.

They made off with £410.

Ian West, for Shotton, said his client had been homeless at the time and had been vulnerable to temptation. He said his client had made a full admission to the police.

Richard Bennett, for Bytheway, said he had not been the ringleader, as had been suggested.

Greg Parcell, for Bennison, described the 19-year-old as immature, and said he had been in little or no trouble in the past. He said Bennison had a reliance on alcohol and that the robbery had happened on a day of madness.

Judge George Moorhouse sentenced Bytheway to six years in prison, Shotton to four years in a young offenders' institution, with six months added on for a breach of probation, and Bennison to three years in a young offenders' institution