THREE men were jailed yesterday after being foiled during a well-planned bid to break into a Post Office over a Bank Holiday weekend.

Durham Crown Court heard that the trio targeted the safe at Bishop Auckland Post Office, with contents of about £150,000, in May 1999.

Having broken into the rear of the Tenter Street premises, the gang planned to sledgehammer through the walls of a room containing the safe.

But the raid was inadvertently rumbled by an elderly man returning home from a night out, who became suspicious when he passed look-out David Fisher, wearing a balaclava mask and holding a walkie-talkie.

Police were alerted and officers detained Fisher following a chase, while co-accused Dennis Ewin and Stephen Fleming were arrested on the roof of Woolworth's store an hour later.

Detectives called out town centre key-holders the following day, and the postmaster discovered the rear of his premises had been forced.

Mark Styles, prosecuting, said an abandoned jemmy and sledgehammer were discovered inside the Post Office, where an attempt had been made to breach the wall of the room containing the safe.

Ewin, 29, of Newholme Crescent, Evenwood, near Bishop Auckland, was jailed for three years, and 40-year-old Fleming, of Frank Street, Gilesgate, Durham, was sentenced to two years and nine months. Both admitted burglary.

Fisher, 41, of Lilac Avenue, Sacriston, admitted conspiracy to burgle and was jailed for three and a half years.

Passing sentence, Recorder Simon Bourne-Arton QC, described it as, "a professional and well planned offence".

"You may not have known how much was there, but you went to get as much as you could out of that Post Office and if you had succeeded you would have been playing for high stakes.