Knife threat by man whowanted to go back to jail

Anthony Revill, 35, walked into a Halifax bank brandishing a kitchen knife before snatching 1,400 from the pregnant member of staff.

But a court heard he committed the crime because he wanted to go back to prison after feeling he hadn’t been given a severe enough punishment for offences he committed in 1998.

York Crown Court was told Revill had served four years in prison after sexually abusing mental patients at a care home.

Alan Mitcheson, prosecuting, said: “It seems the motivation of the offence (in York) is his desire to be imprisoned further. He regarded a four-year sentence as insufficient imprisonment.”

Revill, of Gateshead, left a hospital where he was being treated earlier this year and took a train to York, where he committed the offence.

In mitigation, the court was told Revill, who admitted the robbery, had said he had been hearing voices in his head telling him to harm a woman, and had immediately sought medical help and was put on medication.

The Recorder of York Judge Stephen Ashurst told Revill: “You brought terror to the staff and customers. I am told that you would be happy to receive a long custodial sentence; what I have to ensure is I’m not being manipulated by someone in the dock.”

Sentencing him to an indefinite length of time in prison, Judge Ashurst told him that his “bizarre behaviour presents a risk of serious harm to the public.”