Three men will be sentenced on Friday over a cash-in-transit robbery in Liverpool’s Chinatown .
Lesley Aitchison, 38, Spencer Benjamin, 43, and Ian Porter, 46, were charged with robbery and possession of an imitation firearm following the robbery last year.
Two security guards were refilling a stand-alone cashpoint, near the corner of Nelson Street and Duke Street, at around 10.25am on Monday, July 20.
Police said two masked men threatened them with a handgun and stole a box containing cash.
The robbers were said to have made off in a grey Vauxhall Insignia up Duke Street, towards Upper Parliament Street.
Aitchison and Benjamin were also charged with robbery in relation to an incident at a Tesco store in Eastham, Wirral on May 9 this year.
Benjamin, of Solway Street West, Toxteth , and Porter, of Longborough Road, Prescot , appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today to face trial.
Aitchison, of no fixed address but believed to be from the Kensington area, had previously admitted all three charges.
This afternoon Benjamin pleaded guilty to both robberies but denied possession of an imitation firearm.
Porter admitted the Chinatown robbery but also denied the firearms offence during the short hearing.
Graham Pickavance, prosecuting, said the Crown accepted these pleas and would not proceed with the firearms allegation against Benjamin and Porter.
Judge Elizabeth Nicholls said the three defendants would be sentenced together on Friday.
She remanded them all in custody.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/