A York garage was today hit by armed robbers for the second time in five weeks.

A cashier at Wills and Ellis's service station in Boroughbridge Road was threatened at gunpoint in the early hours - only weeks after another cashier, who had worked at the garage for three years, was menaced by a robber armed with a knife.

An undisclosed amount of cash was taken in the latest raid.

And after speaking to his staff today, the garage's owner, Mr Stephen Ellis, revealed that sophisticated security measures were being taken to prevent such raids in the future.

"This was the second robbery and that was two too many," said Mr Ellis.

"We are taking steps to make sure there are no more."

Det Insp Geoff Dodd, of York police, said: "Obviously offences of this kind are extremely worrying.

"We are not in a position to know what was in the mind of the person who robbed the garage but clearly they were threatening violence.

"We would ask anyone with any information about this incident to help us to trace the offender by contacting the crime desk."

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