Police say they want to hear from anyone who saw the green N-registration car in the Merthyr area prior to the crash, which happened near to the cemetery in Pant.
But he quashed the council's registration of the West Beach as a village green because it fell within the Newhaven port area and was "incompatible with the statutory purpose for which the land is held".
Jana Hybaskova, the European Union envoy to Iraq, described similar voter registration problems at polling sites in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area.
Northumbria Police said the robbers left the area in a second vehicle, believed to be a grey coloured BMW 320 estate bearing the false registration NE08VWG.