Drug addict on bike dragged student along as she fought to stop him stealing phone

A robber who targeted lone female students before snatching their mobile phones has been jailed.

Lee Bailey rode up to young women on his bike in Middlesbrough town centre before snatching iPhones and riding away, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The 26-year-old targeted the town’s student population in November and December last year, and sprung from behind to take the high value handsets which were sold to fund his heroin habit.

Prosecutor Ian West said: “Students, females when they are alone, are very much the ones who are being targeted.

“There is a degree of vulnerability there.”

Bailey pleaded guilty to one theft on November 30, and one robbery on December 1, both on Corporation Road in Middlesbrough - while asking for four other almost identical thefts in Middlesbrough town centre on November 28 and December 1 to be taken into account.

Mr West continued: “On one occasion at around 3.30pm on Corporation Road, a student was walking holding her phone and listening to music through her headphones.

“He approaches silently from behind. The student said she felt a hand grab her phone, and try to pull it out of her hand.

“She holds on and tries to keep stop him taking it, but he cycles off and she is pulled along for four or five metres.

"He elbows her in the arm, with enough force to break her grip so he can ride away with the phone.”

Bailey was captured on CCTV committing this robbery, and made admissions to police when he was arrested.

Cleveland Police

Lee Bailey

The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence for another charge of theft, in which Bailey was accused of stealing another iPhone in July last year.

The court also heard that Bailey, of Stump Cross, Guisborough, had been given a 12-week prison sentence for another theft from a person in 2013.

Mitigating, Michael Bosomworth said: “My client knows perfectly well he faces a custodial sentence.

“He has, in effect, targeted young women - but these are carried out on a busy street in broad daylight.

"I don’t know how vulnerable they are.”

But Recorder Felicity Davies responded: “They are easy targets. I didn’t see him targeting men of his own size.”

Mr Bosomworth said that Bailey had been a mechanic until 2010, and had not offended until his early twenties.

He said the stress of another court case last year, in which he was acquitted, led Bailey to become a heroin addict and he stole “simply to fund his addiction”.

Recorder Davies sentenced to 28 months in prison for robbery, and 20 months for theft to run concurrently.

She said: “These are serious offences and put fear into a particular section of the community. Young women became fearful for their safety.”