AN UNCLE and nephew donned Hallowe'en masks and wielded baseball bats to rob a terrified pizza delivery man, a court was told.

Lee Howarth-Hynes and his nephew Robert Hynes claimed that the robbery started off as a prank but it was no joke to the frightened delivery man Richard Makin.

He was hit with the baseball bat by Robert Hynes during the robbery and forced to part with more than £80 in cash along with his car keys after Howarth-Hynes had taken the pizzas he was delivering.

Hynes and Howarth-Hynes had drunk a crate of lager before they committed the robbery and Hynes had later bragged about the incident to friends.

Yesterday at Bolton Crown Court Hynes, aged 21, of Gilda Road, Mosley Common, Leigh, was jailed or five years for two robberies and 29-year-old Howarth Hynes, of Norbury Street, Leigh, received three years for one robbery.

The attack happened at midnight on February 3 when the pizza delivery man took two pizzas to an address in Cameron Street, Leigh.

He noticed two men leave a house opposite the delivery address and became alarmed when he saw they were wearing masks and holding wooden baseball bats.

They approached him and demanded he give them the food. The pizzas were handed over and Howarth-Hynes left with the food telling Hynes to leave the man alone. But Hynes had stayed on and demanded money from the delivery man who had given him some small change he used for float money.

Hynes was not satisfied with the amount and hit Makin with the baseball bat. The terrified man then handed over £80 in cash and his car keys before managing to escape.

Prosecutor Anthony Mazzag said Robert Hynes had also robbed a student of his coat, wallet, mobile phone and boots in a late night robbery.

Hynes had got on a bus and sat on a seat opposite Daniel Taylor and then got off the bus with the student and engaged him in conversation.

Without warning he grabbed him by the shoulder pushed him into a fence and demanded his Rockport jacket which contained his wallet with £15 cash and a portable CD player in the pocket. When he got the jacket he punched the young man in the face.

Then he forced Mr Taylor to walk down the road with him, apologised for the theft saying he thought he was a man called Carl who had assaulted his deaf brother. He said he would return the stolen clothes.

Hynes then hit the student again who fell on the floor and demanded he take his boots off and then used them to beat the student on the body. He threatened to blow up his house if he reported the incident to the police.

Later the student and friends saw the man in Yates' Wine Lodge in Swinton where he was wearing the student's boots and coat.

The next day the boots and coat were found dumped in Mr Taylor's garden and police managed to track down Hynes through an appointment card they found in a jacket pocket.

The court heard that Howarth-Hynes had just one previous conviction and Hynes had nine convictions covering 34 offences.

Henry Blacksahw, defending Hynes, said that both attacks had been carried out when Hynes had drunk a large amount of alcohol. At the time he had been spending £40 to £50 a day on drink.

But while he had been in custody he had been on a special de-toxification course and realised that drinking had caused him many problems. He had a child with another woman and his current girlfriend had just given birth.

Defending Howarth-Hynes, Nicky Gatto said his participation in the robbery was completely out of character and everyone who knew him described him as a gentle giant. He recognised that he had a drink problem which had not been helped by the death of his brother last year. He had offered Hynes a place to stay when he came out of prison and hand gone on a drinking binge with him which culminated in the pizza robbery.