Criminal history of two callous robbers locked up for attack on former soldier

Court was told of the previous convictions of Gary Mills and Matthew Putson

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Gallery: Attack victim Cyril Edmonds

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Neither Gary Robert Mills nor Matthew Paul Putson - locked up for the cowardly attack on Cyril Edmonds, 78 - were strangers to the courts, even at their young ages.

“Three strikes” burglar Mills, 22, had by far the worst record of the two, with 18 court appearances.

He hadn’t long been released from a six-year sentence when he robbed 78-year-old Cyril Edmonds.

He was given the six-year term, aged just 19, in November 2010 for two robberies, a burglary and an assault.

He was the oldest of four young offenders condemned by a crown court judge as “bully boys” who frightened, abused and threatened decent people.

Judge Les Spittle said: “You and people like you, young men like you, are a scourge on our society.

“You have no conscience for anybody, be it young male, young female, those who are under a disability.

“You think you can go through life doing what you like and get away with it.”

Mills took part in the violent robbery of a 16-year-old girl’s phone, where she was dragged across the ground, and an attack on her boyfriend in Albert Park, Middlesbrough.

A week later, he burgled a retired woman’s Middlesbrough home and shed and, with a knife tucked in his shorts, robbed another 16-year-old boy of a mountain bike, punched him, kicked him to the head and threatened to stab him.

His record began when he was 15, with a caution for assault after he and another man used a knife to take a man’s bike.

He burgled a Middlesbrough home to steal jewellery in 2009 and burgled an Essex home posing as a door-to-door salesman.

Putson, aka Matthew Sharpe, 17, had a reprimand for burglary when he was just 10.

He started offending in earnest when he was 13, with convictions for theft and damage.

In one case, he demanded money with threats to take cash from two victims.

He had a conviction for assault in North Cumbria where he kneed and punched a school teacher, and for burgling his grandmother’s home and stealing her jewellery and car.