A prolific criminal has been jailed for over three years after terrorising three teenage boys with a Stanley knife and threatening to slit their throats during a robbery in York.
Jason Francis Smith, 48, wielded the folding blade as he demanded money from the terrified teenagers, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Kelly Clarke said the three friends were making their way from the city centre towards York Hospital when Smith, who was drunk, passed them on his bike in the Union Terrace car park at about 12.20am on 23 June, 2021.
Smith rode back down the road, past the Changing Lives homeless shelter, until he was alongside the three boys.
“The defendant was aggressive and wanted to start a fight,” said Ms Clarke.
“He claimed he heard the three of them laughing about him.”
Suddenly, Smith pulled out a Stanley knife from his pocket and demanded “a tenner from each of them”.
The hooded York thug tried to get them behind the local Co-op store, but they took no heed. He then told them: “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
He warned them that if they didn’t hand over the money, “I’ll slit all your throats”.
One of the boys crossed the road to get away from Smith and filmed the ensuing robbery of his friend on his phone.
Smith turned his anger on one boy in particular who he claimed had been laughing at him. Terrified, the victim handed him £10 from his wallet, but then Smith noticed he was wearing a Hugo Boss wristwatch and demanded he hand that over too.
“He pulled (the victim) in closer by his T-shirt,” said Ms Clarke.
“(The victim) tried to reason with him and said it had sentimental value.”
Unmoved, Smith again demanded that he hand over the £370 watch which the victim did.
“All the while, the defendant had been counting down from five, suggesting he would use the knife if the victims did not pay up,” added the prosecuting barrister.
In the event, only the boy with the designer watch handed over any money before the incident came to an end.
‘Frightening experience’
Smith was arrested and brought in for questioning the following day after being identified on CCTV.
He was charged with one count of robbery and two counts of attempted robbery and ultimately admitted the offences after initially being judged unfit to plead due to his mental state exacerbated by drug addiction.
He appeared for sentence yesterday after being remanded in a mental-health unit.
In a victim statement read out in court, one of the victims said that even now, more than three years on, “the incident still stays with me and I feel that it will always be part of me”.
He said his “first experience of staying out late alone” had turned into a “frightening experience” which had affected his mental health and “has made me a very anxious person”.
The prosecution outlined Smith’s “appalling” criminal record comprising 148 offences and including several previous robberies, burglary, handling stolen goods, stealing bicycles and carrying knives.
In 1998, he was jailed for five years for robbery and false imprisonment and in 2010 he received an eight-year prison term for attempted robbery and perverting the course of justice.
Defence barrister Zarreen Alan-Cheetham said Smith’s “appalling, shocking” record was informed by a long-standing drug habit stemming from a traumatic childhood.
She said that Smith, a father-of-one, had been taking drugs including LSD, heroin and amphetamine since his early teens and led a “chaotic lifestyle”. He was homeless at the time of robbing the teenagers.
Recorder Mr D Kelly said the three teenage boys must have been caused “psychological trauma” by being “threatened by a middle-aged man with a Stanley knife”.
He had noted reports by two consultant psychiatrists who recommended either a short hospital order with subsequent restricted and monitored release into the community or a hybrid order where Smith would serve part of his sentence in hospital and part of it in prison following treatment.
Mr Kelly said a hybrid order would be more appropriate to ensure a penal element to the sentence for such serious offences while allowing Smith to receive the treatment he needed for his mental disorder.
He said that Smith would serve the “vast majority” of the 40-month sentence in prison where he would be transferred once the treating psychiatrists were satisfied that he could be released from hospital.
However, Smith will only spend half of the entire sentence of three years and four months in a custodial setting before being released on prison licence.