The South Wales Argus has recorded its highest weekly sale for eight years.

The Newsquest evening paper had an average Monday-Friday sale of 33,379 (32,519 M-S), for the week beginning Monday April 11, making it the best week since 1997.

Editor Gerry Keighley said: “A bank robbery on the Monday helped push the sale up.

“The most encouraging thing was that on a couple of days in the week we were actually down on last year when we had cracking stories as well, so this was no one-hit wonder.”

The Newport-based paper recently picked up the special merit award for the highest growth over a three-year period for the third time running at the Newspaper Society newspaper sales awards.

It is now pushing for its tenth consecutive ABC six-month increase in sale.

This week it drew national attention when visiting deputy prime minister John Prescott told one of its reporters to “bugger off” for being persistent.