A Carlisle Crown Court jury has convicted a man of being part of a terrifying robbery in a car park.

Ian Main, 30, denied playing any part in the attack - which was jointly carried out with 36-year-old Toni Claire Woods in a Penrith supermarket car park on June 17.

But, after hearing evidence, a jury convicted him of robbery.

Both Main and Woods admitted the offence in an earlier hearing.

During the trial, the court heard evidence via a video link to Stockholm from victim Peter Gustaffson, who at the time was working as a chef in Greystoke.

He outlined encountering the defendants by chance while he was at the Ullswater Road branch of the McDonalds’s restaurant in Penrith. Arriving in a car, they had asked him how he was, he said.

Because he had no transport of his own, Mr Gustaffson asked them for a lift to Greystoke.

“They said ‘No problem - hop in.’” said Mr Gustaffson.

The victim described how Main, at the wheel of the car, drove recklessly, going the wrong way along a one-way street and narrowly missing two pedestrians. The defendants screamed at those two young men, he said.

After this, Mr Gustaffson concluded the lift was not a good idea and asked to be dropped off, but in the town’s B&M store car park Main offered to sell him cocaine. When he refused, the defendants attacked and robbed him.

First Woods attacked him, trying take his bag - which contained around £800 in wages and his passport; and then Main joined in. Mr Gustaffson said: “He came out to help her with taking the bag from me.”

“He started slapping and hitting me as well. Both of them were pulling at the bag. He tried to take my watch. I couldn’t handle both of them.”

Both defendants, from Hebburn, Tyne and Wear, will be sentenced on Thursday.