A bungling crook was caught after holding up a petrol station using “the worst ever” disguise – a SEE-THROUGH carrier bag over his head.
Hapless Jamie Neil, 41, walked into the garage with the clear plastic bag pulled across his face.
He thought it would hide his identity but he could clearly be seen through the translucent material.
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Neil and accomplice Gareth Tilley, 20, were at home when they decided to rob the store and grabbed ”the nearest thing” they could find, a court heard.
Tilley wrapped a scarf around his head but Neil used a carrier bag – meaning his face was captured on CCTV.
Police say Tilley then pretended his mobile phone was a gun – but was rumbled when the keypad LIT UP.
Officers studied video of the raid and an off duty cop recognised Neil in the street several days later.
Neil was jailed for two years at Truro Crown Court following the robbery on September 27 last year. Tilley was previously jailed for two years for the raid.
Speaking after the hearing Detective Constable Steve White said Neil’s disguise was the most “ridiculous” he had ever come across.
He said: “Before arriving at the location Tilley disguised his face using a scarf and Neil, being less resourceful, put a plastic bag on his head.
“I investigated the case with CCTV and forensic evidence used to identify the assailants.”
Both men were high on booze and stolen medication when they donned makeshift disguises and stormed a Co-op petrol station store in St Austell, Cornwall.
Tilley pointed his phone at the lone female counter worker and demanded cash but she soon realised it wasn’t a gun and pressed an alarm.
Neil then wrestled with the brave employee before headbutting her and fleeing with several bottles of spirits.
But face was easily visible through the plastic bag and a CCTV image was distributed among the police.
Two days later off-duty detective constable Lauren Holley was driving her mother home when she recognised Neil and called for backup.
Neil, of Bethel, Cornwall, was convicted of robbery last Friday and jailed by Judge John Neligan, who praised the shop assistant’s courage.
Tilley, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty last November.
