A terrifying robber armed with a fish gutting knife who struck twice within days at two stores was jailed for six years today.
Stephen Charlton told the judge that he was off his head with drugs when he was caught on CCTV in the early morning raids this summer in Lingdale and Redcar.
The Sainsbury’s shop assistant who faced the Grangetown addict on his second raid said Conway threatened to stab her - and that she felt that he had done it before.
Charlton, 20, was brandishing the knife at 6am on August 16 when he walked up to the counter in the Premier Family Mart on the High Street in Lingdale with his hood drawn tightly over his face.
Prosecutor David Crook told Teesside Crown Court that the terrified assistant ran into a back room where she and a colleague barricaded the door while Charlton stole £140 and some cigarettes.
She told police later: “Even now I’m really upset, I’ve no doubt the incident will affect me.”
Five days later at 6.30am on August 21 Charlton robbed Sainsbury’s in Larkswood Road, Redcar, of £500 to £600 with the knife protruding from his sleeve telling assistant Lesley McGregor: “Don’t press the alarm, I’ve a knife. Fill a bag with money.”
As she stuffed notes into a bag he demanded some £1 coins and cigarettes.
In court Charlton went into the witness box and he told Judge Michael Taylor that another man was with him, who he did not name, but that man stayed outside and left before him.
He said: “I can’t remember much, I was off my head on drugs.”
Ms McGregor said in a victim impact statement that was read out: “I’m worried about what could have happened.
“I’m angry that I was put in physical harm by this male with a knife.
“He told me in no uncertain terms that he would have used the knife if he had not got what he wanted.
“I believed I would be seriously hurt or more by the knife.
"He was within striking distance of me, and I feel that he had done it before.”
She added: “I did not go back to work for a week or more.
"I began to cry thinking about going back to work. I actually love work and I have very good friends who work at the store.
“Not long after the robbery I was at work when a male and female entered the store.
"He had a hoodie on, and now when customers enter the store with hoods up I ask them to pull them back.
“I feel the same when I am out shopping. I do wish I did not have to feel this way, and it makes me angry.”
Mr Crook said that the aggravating circumstances were that weapons were produced and raised to threaten the assistants, the robberies were pre-planned and were against vulnerable victims in the early hours.
Charlton committed them when he was on bail for setting fire to a neighbour’s car on May 3 in a grudge attack.
Zoe Passfield, defending, said that he had descended into drink and drugs over difficulties in having access to his young child but his girlfriend had since visited him in prison with the baby and they had hopes for the future.
She said that he accepted with reality that he was facing a long prison sentence.
Judge Taylor told him: “These were truly terrifying incidents, and regrettably in this area these sort of offences are all too common.”
Charlton, of Windsors Court, Grangetown, was jailed for six years after he pleaded guilty to two robberies, two of possessing a bladed article and arson.
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