A WOMAN and child seen on the forecourt of a garage where a security van was held up by armed raiders could provide vital evidence of the robbers' identity.

Three men, carrying what was believed to be a sawn-off shotgun, made off with a substantial amount of cash from a Securicor van at the Inner Space service station on York's Boroughbridge Road on Thursday morning.

A red Rover 214 was found in Barlow Street, Acomb, shortly after the robbery, with its engine still running.

Detective Inspector Geoff Dodd said: "We are keen to speak to a middle-aged woman with a young child who was seen at the garage at the time of the robbery.

"We are now considering the possibility that there may have been four men rather than three men involved in the raid and that they may be from outside the York area.

"There is a chance that they may have stayed over in York on the night before the raid and we would like to hear from anybody who may have seen them."

Two auto-tellers on the garage forecourt may also help to identify witnesses and police are checking bank records to discover who used the machines about the time of the raid.

Police are still combing the area for the boilersuits and balaclavas worn by the men in the raid.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.