QUICK-THINKING supermarket staff helped to catch a man who was trying to pass "high-quality" fake banknotes.

He was stopped as he sought to flee from York down the A19, with a stash of forged notes in the glove compartment of his car, York Crown Court heard.

Cashier Michelle Bell spotted something was wrong with a £20 note that William John Finney, 29, gave her at the Tesco Clifton Moor store on March 11, said prosecutor Alan Mitcheson.

She rejected the note, alerted other staff who called police, and Finney was caught as he tried to drive back to his Doncaster base.

It was his second excursion to York with phoney money. Two weeks earlier, he had handed it out to women companions, who used it at five shops in the McArthurGlen shopping centre.

When the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, saw the forgeries, he said: "As far as forgeries go, they are some of the best I have seen. They have even got the metal strip. They look for all the world to be genuine notes."

Skip hire company owner Finney, of Stocks Bridge Lane, Bentley, Doncaster, pleaded guilty to six offences of passing counterfeit money and one of possessing it.

Mr Mitcheson said that police tracked down £320 in forged Bank of England and Bank of Scotland £20 notes that Finney had used or had in his stash.

Finney was jailed for 12 months, and was ordered to serve 35 days unserved of a previous sentence for driving while disqualified because he was on parole at the time of the offences.

Mr Mitcheson said Ms Bell spotted the forgery because the ink on the £20 English note handed to her was smudged and the paper did not feel right. Finney did not look surprised when she handed it back to him and he immediately made off with his companion.

On February 28, when he was with two women, Finney's companions had managed to use five forged £20 Scottish notes at five different shops in the McArthurGlen outlet, without arousing suspicions until after they had gone.

Their success could have been because York shop assistants are unfamiliar with Scottish notes, said the prosecutor.

For Finney, Glenn Parsons said an Irishman had given Finney the phoney money as a present. The judge said he did not believe this account.

Mr Parsons said the skip hire business had been going through a lean period and Finney had used the counterfeit notes to buy necessities for his children.

Updated: 09:11 Monday, April 18, 2005