THE getaway driver for an armed post office robbery has been told he is facing a lengthy jail term after a jury found him guilty of his role in the hold up.

Kieren Wheeler, 19, claimed he had no idea his mate Zak Bradbury, 21, was about to carry out the raid as he thought he was dropping him off at his mum’s house.

And he said he feared his accomplice would shoot him after he put the gun to his head and told him to drive, a story backed up by Bradbury who admitted the offence.

But after hearing the pair had shared a cell while on remand, giving them time to cook up the story, a jury rejected their version of events and found Wheeler, from Swindon, guilty.

Adjourning sentence to Thursday, November 10, and remanding him in custody, Judge Tim Mousley QC, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, told him jail was inevitable.

He said: “You have been convicted on the best of evidence of a very serious offence which inevitably will lead to a custodial sentence of some length.

“I will sentence you when you come back with Zak Bradbury. There will be a pre-sentence report which will assist me in determining the length of sentence.”

The verdicts were returned by a panel of 11 after one of the jurors was discharged following the first day following an ‘irregularity’.

It is claimed she was ‘contacted indirectly’ by someone who had been in the public gallery and the matter has been referred to the police.

Bradbury burst into the small Oaksey Post Office, just outside Malmesbury, at 7.30am on Wednesday, May 18.

Masked, and in dark clothing, he brandished a pistol in one hand and a hammer in the other, which he smashed down on the table and Perspex screen.

He snarled at the postmistress ‘Put it all in the bag’ as he thrust a rucksack across the counter, telling he to hurry up as she put around £1,200 in it.

The robber also demanded some cigarettes and took 11 packs of Mayfair, though he dropped three on the way out.

After fleeing to the waiting Renault Clio, sitting on The Green with the engine running, the hapless raiders drove off past the shop giving the victim a chance to note down the registration.

Although she confused and 'N' with an 'M' the details were enough for police to pick up the vehicle with automatic number plate recognition cameras.

A police patrol in the Pewsham area of Chippenham then followed the car to Calne, where the robbers went to Wheeler’s brother’s flat in Pym House, on The Knapp.

Once there they changed clothes, hiding them about the apartment, before arranging a lift to Swindon.

But they were arrested as they got into the car, being driven by Wheeler’s sister-in-law’s mum, and the gun fell from Bradbury’s trousers.

In the second car, police found a roll of £430 in notes held together by a hairband which had Wheeler’s DNA on it, while £450 was found in Bradbury’s pocket.

The jury was also been shown video footage from Wheeler’s mobile phone showing the two men as they were out driving in the same car the morning before the robbery.

In the film Wheeler, of Magnolia Court, Pinehurst, is driving while Bradbury films and is heard boasting about the speed they were going, while having no insurance or MoT.

As the camera focussed on a large rural property a voice is heard saying ‘Countryside houses out here: big burglary things’.

At an earlier hearing Bradbury, of no fixed abode, admitted robbery, possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and having a knife.

Wheeler pleaded not guilty to the charges and was convicted of all but the knife matter.