A TEENAGE mum helped an accomplice rob a Little Lever store late at night by persuading shop staff to open their doors so she could buy nappies.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Charlotte Lee, who was aged 17 at the time of the robbery, approached the Spar shop, which is attached to the petrol station in Church Street, Little Lever, at 3.20am on November 28.

She asked staff to let her in so she could buy the nappies and, because they thought she was alone and recognised her as a regular customer, they unlocked the doors.

But Jonathan Dickinson, prosecuting, told the court how Lee was followed into the shop by a man wearing a balaclava and brandishing a large, dagger-like knife. He vaulted the counter and demanded the staff open the till, but the shop workers ran off on to the forecourt, going back to the shop to see Shaun Eldred, who they recognised by his voice, carrying out goods including a cash, a charity collection box and Marvel Hero cards.

Eldred chased them, with the two employees managing to flag down a passing car and call police.

They then spotted Lee and another man, who had been outside the shop and also carrying a knife, heading into a house in Church Street, where police arrested her and Eldred and recovered the stolen property.

Lee, now aged 18, of Pole Street, Tonge Moor, pleaded guilty to robbery at an earlier hearing, where 28-year-old Eldred, who also pleaded guilty, was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Brian McKenna, defending, said Lee, who has a 19-month-old child and is expecting another baby in September, had been manipulated into taking part in the robbery by a more sophisticated criminal and had not been aware he was armed.

Sentencing Lee to 10 months in a young offenders’ institute, suspended for 12 months, Judge Elliot Knopf told her: “You acted as a decoy and enabled your co-defendant to access the locked up Spar shop.”

Lee will also be subject to 12 months supervision by probation.