POLICE investigating a possible armed robbery at an Accrington petrol station early yesterday morning believe they are close to making arrests.

Detectives from Accrington CID spent yesterday reviewing CCTV footage from the Supamart petrol station, in Hyndburn Road, and the town centre and also lifted fingerprints from the scene.

They also recovered cigarettes which were dropped by the robbers as they made their escape.

The items have been sent to police headquarters for forensic examination and the crime scene was also forensically examined.

Det Sgt Paul Broxon, of Accrington CID, said: "The CCTV footage does show a man with a hand under his jacket which he his pointing towards the cashier. It might be a gun or it might just be his fingers but we are not ruling out the possibility that this was an armed robbery.

"We have recovered some good fingerprints from the scene and we are hoping to put some names to those finger prints and make arrests soon."

Since reviewing the CCTV footage police have been able to release better descriptions of the robbers.

The man who may have had a weapon is described as slightly taller than his original height of 5ft 2ins. He was white, in his 20s, and wearing a royal blue hat, a white top with broad, black stripes down both arms, dark trousers and training shoes.

The second man is described as white, wearing a dark 'puffa-style' jacket, white baseball cap and dark trousers and was around 6ft tall.

The third man was also white, in his 20s, wearing a dark coloured jacket, dark bottoms and white training shoes.

A 19-year-old sales assistant was threatened during the raid at 2.10am on Wednesday. Two men approached the glass window of the 24-hour garage which was locked but they demanded to be let in.

One of the men threatened the teenager with what he believed was a gun and in fear of his life let the robbers in. They grabbed around £200 in cash and 200 cigarettes before escaping through the back door and through the car park. At some point during the raid the third man was let in through the back door.

Anyone with any information on the robbery should contact police on 01254 51212 or crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.