THREE men caught by police as they waited to rob the owner of a York curry house of thousands of pounds in takings have been jailed for a total of 16 years.

Mohammed Islam, 31, Sayed Ali, 21, and Mohammed Uddin, 26, pleaded guilty at York Crown Court to attempting to rob Kaliqu Zaman, owner of the Jaipur Spice restaurant in Haxby Road.

But Mr Zaman said he had hoped they would be jailed for longer.

He said: "I was expecting them to get more. If they hadn't been interrupted they could have attacked me and tried to kill me.

"It was really frightening."

The men were caught red-handed outside Mr Zaman's home in Aylesham Court, Huntington, York, shortly before 1am on June 13, after a member of the public saw them behaving suspiciously and phoned police.

Officers were called to nearby Stratford Way by a witness who had seen an Asian man run out of the grounds of a derelict nursing home and put something in the boot of a Volkswagen Golf. They followed the car to Aylesham Court, where it stopped outside Mr Zaman's house.

Police spoke to the driver, Islam, who claimed he was taking Mr Zaman to a wedding. At that moment Mr Zaman returned home from work, with the night's takings of £2,000.

He said: "When I got home I saw lots of police around my house and just panicked.

"Police officers stopped my car from going into the drive and asked me if I knew the lads. I said I didn't and they let me into my house."

Officers found Ali in the garden, wearing a pair of latex gloves. They found a pair of women's stockings, knotted together to make a mask, on the ground nearby.

Uddin was also found in the garden and arrested. When police searched the area they found two more pairs of latex gloves, two homemade masks and a claw hammer. More stockings and gloves were found in the car.

Mr Zaman said: "I couldn't sleep for two or three weeks afterwards.

"I'm still frightened about what they might do to me when they get out. The worst thing is knowing that someone must have told them where I live and what time I was going to get home."

Islam, of Hendford Drive, Bradford, who has a wife and three children, told police he was only there to drive the others to and from the scene, for £40.

He was jailed for six years for the public's protection because he had previously been in prison for petrol- bombing a house in 1992.

Uddin, a joiner, of Barlow Street, Bradford, and Ali, an insurance worker, of Webster Street, also Bradford, were both jailed for five years.

Judge Paul Hoffman told the men: "This was to be a violent, carefully planned attack. You were equipped with gloves, masks and a claw hammer. You were playing for high stakes."

A fourth man, Rupon Miah, also from Bradford, also pleaded guilty to attempted robbery. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Updated: 10:35 Tuesday, January 24, 2006