THEY thought they could get away without paying for their pizza, but ended up in prison.

Bungling robbers Karl Axtell and Carl Hemmings, both 22, were drunk when they thought up their plan to get free pizza from Domino’s by robbing a delivery boy on March 20.

But after giving the correct address in Hailey Road, Witney, their crime was easily traced.

Fuelled by alcohol, they decided to use tea towels to mask their faces and lie in wait outside the property for their food to arrive.

Oxford Crown Court heard on Friday that Axtell, of Hailey Road, threatened Domino’s employee Radoslaw Szewczyk with a hammer, while Hemming, of Windrush Valley Road, Witney, and another man, who was not charged, stood alongside.

Jonathan Stone, prosecuting, said: “When Mr Szewczyk got to the address, he parked outside and a little further up the road he could see three young men sat opposite the shop drinking beer.”

The three surrounded him, and one shouted, “Give me your money, or we will take you,” Mr Stone said.

Mr Stone said Axtell had waved the hammer, but Mark Dixon, defending, said it was merely tucked into his client’s belt, although visible.

Frightened, Mr Szewczyk threw the pizzas at the trio and ran away.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Szewczyk said: “I heard one of them shout, ‘Leave him, I’ve got the pizzas’.”

Mr Dixon said the plan had been hatched while the defendants were drunk.

“I cannot think of a more ridiculous way to become involved in an offence of this nature,” he said.

“It would not be in dispute that if they had not been in drink to this extent, this ridiculous situation would not have occurred.”

He said Axtell had been so drunk that he had not eaten any of the pizza, but gone straight to bed.

He added: “What started out as an ill-conceived idea got progressively worse.”

Members of the defendants’ families burst into tears as Judge Patrick Eccles sentenced Axtell, who has convictions for burglary, theft and assault, to 28 months in prison, and Hemmings to 20 months.

The two men will spend at least half their sentence in custody. Both had earlier pleaded guilty to robbery.

Judge Eccles said their crime had left their victim “extremely frightened”.

He said: “He was in all circumstances put in a vulnerable position being out at night on his own.

“He was only doing his job, with no idea what was going to face him when he came to deliver the pizza.”