A BURNT trainer matched the footprints on a security door kicked in during a £32,000 post office robbery, a court heard.

A jury at Bolton Crown Court was told how, on June 30 last year, two masked raiders wearing balaclavas and carrying a sledgehammer burst into the post office at Bury Road, Tonge Fold, just after 11.30pm.

Postmaster Champakal Patel was transferring cash between safes at the premises ready to close for the day.

Philip Parry, prosecuting, said the robbers proceeded to smash their way through the reinforced door between the public and staff areas of the post office while Mr Patel pressed a panic alarm and fled out of the back of the building.

Before police arrived the robbers grabbed £32,562.10 and fled on a blue Honda motorbike, which was abandoned minutes later in a back yard behind Clarendon Road.

Mr Parry said that two days later a member of the public spotted a small pile of clothing on fire at Bradshaw Brook, Hall i’th’ Wood.

The partially burnt gloves, trainers, trousers and tops were recovered by police and sent for forensic testing.

The tread of the trainers matched a mark left on the post office security door.

“There was very strong evidence to support the ascertion that some of the footwear impressions at the post office were made by the trainers at Bradshaw Brook, “ said Mr Parry.

A burnt glove also had DNA belonging to Daniel Burtak on it.

The court heard that the motorbike used in the robbery had been stolen on the day of the crime from Dennis Rylance’s home on Bradshaw Brow.

Mr Rylance told the jury that Daniel Burtak, whom he had known for 20 years, visited him at 8.15am that morning and would have seen the motorbike parked in the hallway of the house.

Burtak, aged 26, of Valpy Avenue, Bolton, was arrested but denied being involved in the robbery, claiming he was shopping at Asda with his girlfriend at the time.

But Mr Parry said that when police studied CCTV from the supermarket they saw the couple entering the store more than an hour and a half after the crime was committed.

Burtak has pleaded not guilty to robbery of the post office and stealing the motorbike in a burglary at the Bradshaw Brow house.

The case continues.