Knife threat in mobile phone robberies

A man has been locked up after he committed a catalogue of phone robberies against schoolboys.

Owen Stanley threatened to stab some of his victims if they did not hand over their mobile phones often confronting them in a local park.

He targeted the same 16-year-old twice in one week, first outside a school and then after he had been playing football, Richard Clews, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

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Stanley, 18 of East Park Terrace, Leeds, was sent to a young offender institution for four years after admitting four offences of robbery, two of attempted robbery, one assault with intent to rob.

He also asked for eight other dishonesty offences to be taken into consideration.

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said the offences amounted to a campaign against young boys who were likely to be vulnerable to his actions.

Mr Clews said the robberies happened over a nine-day period in January.

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The first victim was a 13-year-old approached in East End Park by Stanley, who asked the time. But when the boy got his £80 mobile, which had been a Christmas present, out to check, his assailant told him: “Let me have the phone or I’ll stab you and give me what money you have got.”

The frightened schoolboy, like others in the following days, handed the phone over.

Mr Clews said the offences ended after a man approached a police car waiting in traffic in Harehills, Leeds to say he had just witnessed a robbery in the park and had chased the robber, who had sought shelter at a property in East Park Terrace.

Police arrested Stanley at the address but none of the stolen property was recovered.

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Martin Sharpe, for Stanley, said he never actually used a knife during the offences.

He was a teenager who had a grim background, suffering abuse as a child.

He then turned to cannabis to help blot out the suffering in his life.