'Menaces to society' jailed for 13 years

York Crown Court heard how Darren George Linsdell and Storm Amber Elliott hung around the One Stop Shop in Walmgate, central York.

Twice the couple followed people who visited the shop. They ambushed George Smith, who walks with a stick, at his flat nearby and with an accomplice they surrounded a man with mild autism in a nearby street and knocked him to the ground breaking his skull.

Police told Judge Andrew Stubbs QC through a community impact statement that families, elderly people and students living in the area were so scared by the violence and anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhood in late 2016 and earlier this year, they didn’t want to go to their local shops.

The street robbery was in July 2016 and the flat robbery in May 2017.

Linsdell, 32, of no fixed address, was jailed for eight years. He has previous convictions including a car jacking in Castle car park in 2007 when he hit a driver sitting in his car, grabbed the vehicle and led police on a chase before crashing it in Tang Hall.

His girlfriend Elliott, 19, of no fixed address, was jailed for five years. She has previous convictions for robbery and attempted robbery.

Between the street and flat robberies, both served prison sentences because their white American bulldog had carried out a series of vicious attacks on other dogs in the city centre and elsewhere.

Judge Stubbs called the defendants “menaces to the society in which they live”. Both are heroin users.

The street victim was a “gentleman”, said the judge and rejected claims by Elliott during her trial to blacken his name.

Caroline Wigin, prosecuting, said the victim suffered a brain injury that left him with short term memory loss, vertigo and a changed character.

The victim said in a personal statement: “This incident has made me like this. People think I am strange because of this.”

The judge said the robbery of Mr Smith, a drug user, was an example of “taxing” by those in the drug world “preying” on those less able than themselves.

Mr Smith said in his personal statement: “It has shattered me. I am scared of my own shadow.”

The jury convicted Linsdell and Elliott of the robbery of Mr Smith, and Linsdell and accomplice Leanne Calpin, 41, of the street robbery after three hours in retirement.

They acquitted Linsdell and Elliott of robbing a third victim who claimed in the witness box the robbery had never taken place.

Elliott had pleaded guilty to the street robbery, but the judge said she showed no remorse.

Calpin, of Lawrence Street, York, was jailed for four years. She was on a 12-week suspended prison sentence for shoplifting at the time of the street robbery.

Neal Kutte, for Calpin, said robbery was out of character for her, and Huw Edwards for Elliott said she was young. Ben Campbell for Linsdell said he was a long-term drug user.

Dets Cons Kendra Wedgwood, Simon Fricke and Rebecca Powell won judge’s commendations for bringing them to justice.

Relatives and supporters of the defendants behaved so badly during the trial the judge had to order the public gallery closed for a time.

He also repeatedly had to warn Elliott and Linsdell about their behaviour in the dock. They spent much of their trial talking to each other before they were separated in the dock.