Burnley men jailed over terrifying Clayton-le-Moors raid (From Blackburn Citizen)

Burnley men jailed over terrifying Clayton-le-Moors raid

12:30pm Monday 9th July 2012 in News By Wendy Barlow, Court reporter

TWO men who took part in a terrifying armed raid attempt on a corner shop in East Lancashire have been jailed for a total of almost nine years.

Burnley Crown Court heard how masked Steven Robinson, 28, and Stewart Murphy, 19, went into Londis News Extra, in Barnes Street, Clayton-le-Moors, with an axe and a Samurai sword on May 10, last year.

The pair did not take anything of value and were chased from the store after the owner, Nasir Ahmed, who feared for his life, got a cricket bat from behind the counter. Robinson and his accomplice, who had been carrying the sword, which Mr Ahmed did not see, fled in a getaway car.

Their disguises and the car were found aband-oned nearby.

Robinson, of no fixed address, had been convic- ted of attempted robbery after a trial. Murphy, of Manor Street, Accring-ton, admitted the alleg-ation.

Robinson was jailed for five-and-a-half years. His co-defendant was sent to detention for three years two months. The driver, Jason McCash, 27, of Springhill Road, Accrin-gton, was jailed for five years in January, after pleading guilty to attem-pted robbery.

Mark Lamberty, pros-ecuting, said Mr Ahmed was in his store at about 7pm. There were no customers. He had his back to the entrance.

The first man, wearing a black woollen hat, went immediately to the alcohol section. The second man stood in front of the counter. He wore a balac- lava and was carrying a two-foot long axe in his gloved hands. Mr Ahmed got the bat, challenged the men and they fled, with the shopkeeper pur- suing them out onto the street. The pair got into a car outside the shop, which was driven off.

The incident was cap-tured on CCTV. An officer later found a locked Volkswagen in an alley at the back of Rishton Road. There was an axe on the back seat and a Samurai sword in the front passenger footwell.

Two boys out playing off Charles Street, near the store, later found a sports bag in a bush. It contained two black wooll- en balaclavas, clothing, and a set of VW keys.

The hearing was told Robinson was arrested in January. He was hiding in a cupboard in the kit-chen at an address in Burnley.

Murphy, said to run three local football teams, owned up to taking part when he was arrested over criminal damage on another occasion, and said he had had the sword Mr Lamberty said after Mr Ahmed’s ordeal, he felt stressed and his sleep had been affected.

Judge Simon Newell said the axe and the sword were ‘fearsome weapons’. He continued: “This was a somewhat sophisticated, pre-plann-ed, attempted robbery on a vulnerable man in a corner shop.”