Nine years for robber who terrorised family

Paul Leroy Mitchell was convicted by a jury yesterday of being one of the two raiders who burst into a house in Wetherby Road, Scarcroft, Leeds last November armed with a crowbar and then subjected three of the family living there to a horrific ordeal.

The parents were successful market traders but at the time the robbers broke in on the afternoon of November 15 only the couple’s 29-year-old son and his 23-year-old sister were at home.

Sentencing Mitchell at Leeds Crown Court, Judge Scott Wolstenholme said he and his accomplice clearly expected people to be present because they had taken plastic ties and masking tape with them to tie them up.

They had “accurate information” that there was cash on the premises and demanded to know where the keys of the safe and money were kept.

“When they were unable to give you the information, you subjected them to a truly horrifying experience.”

The son was struck on the head with a hammer in his bedroom before he was punched, kicked and stamped on as he lay on the floor.

Judge Wolstenholme said the violence was only interrupted by the return home of their victim’s mother who was immediately grabbed as she let herself into the house.

She was then punched and the same information demanded from her.

When she could not give them what they wanted the other man produced a knife which he held to her daughter’s face threatening to disfigure her unless she handed over the keys to the safe.

Some of her daughter’s hair was then cut off.

Judge Wolstenholme said fortunately the physical injuries did not turn out to be serious “but it must have felt like torture to them”.

The robbers finally left after searching the whole house finding £3-4,000 in a safe where takings were left before they were banked and an estimated £80,000 of family jewellery, much of a sentimental value.

That had been put into a suitcase with the intention of finding a more secure spot for it, but unfortunately that had not been done before the raid.

None of the money or jewellery was ever recovered.

Mitchell, 50 of Waverley Garth, Beeston, Leeds, had denied he was one of the robbers but was found guilty by the jury.

Judge Wolstenholme said he accepted it was the other robber who was the more aggressive of the two using the violence but Mitchell was described as helping to tie the family up.

It was also an aggravating feature that in, October 1995, Mitchell received three years in prison for robbery.

Jane Beckett, prosecuting, said in that case an elderly woman was attacked after she left a bank with wages for her husband’s business. She was wrestled to the ground and Mitchell escaped with the bag when the strap snapped.

She said in the recent case the family had been totally traumatised by the raid on their home.

Jon Swain representing Mitchell, a former professional boxer, said he still maintained his innocence and in the past he had pleaded guilty to his offences.

He said Mitchell had a good start to life gaining eight CSEs and getting a job as a graphic artist but he was then let down by his employers when he tried to get more formal qualifications.

An articulate man, he “got in with the wrong crowd” and began offending culminating in the opportunistic robbery when he saw the woman leaving the bank when he was in financial difficulties.

After his release from prison he inherited some money following the death of his father and invested it in a restaurant in Headingley, which initially did well. He then opened another business selling reclining chairs but spread himself too thinly trying to run both and “both sadly foundered”.