POLICE are appealing for witnesses after a masked gang stormed a Leigh pub and attacked staff with bats and a pick-axe.

The gang of five, also weilding poles, knocked a female staff member to the ground as they entered through the back door of the Bowling Green pub, in Manchester Road.

They dragged the woman back inside the pub, where they threatened the landlord, jabbing him with bats and hitting him with a pick-axe handle. They fled the pub with a quantity of cash in a stolen red Honda Civic. The car, which had been stolen from Astley on Sunday, was later found abandoned in Wythenshawe.

The offenders are described as male, white and were wearing balaclavas.

The raid, which happened shortly after midnight on Monday, follows attacks on bar staff at two Bolton pubs. Roy Sutton, landlord of the Last Orders pub, in Halliwell, was punched to the ground by a 17-year-old after refusing to serve him on August 11.

Less than three weeks earlier, Michelle Parkinson, landlady at the Blue Boar, in Bolton town centre, was knocked unconscious after asking a man to leave the premises. Both attackers were given cautions by police.