Teen jailed for mobile phone armed robberies (From Stourbridge News)

Teen jailed for mobile phone armed robberies

4:34pm Tuesday 12th March 2013 in News

A TEENAGED armed robber who targeted young people in Brierley Hill and Quarry Bank has been jailed.

Shaquille Thomas-Hodge, aged 18, struck first at Merry Hill shopping centre when he and an accomplice targeted two people.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard one of the victims, who was robbed of his Blackberry mobile phone, was hit on the knee with the baseball bat while a similar device was taken from a second victim in The Boulevard.

Then, just three days later, another mobile and a set of headphones were taken from a 15-year-old boy in Quarry Bank, Thomas-Hodge denied being the robber but admitted handling the stolen items.

He unsuccessfully tried to sell them at a shop that bought and sold second hand electrical items and a check made of the mobile's identification number matched that of a stolen phone.

Thomas-Hodge had been registered as a customer at the shop and the details led to him being arrested by police - just two days after he had robbed a "terrified" 17-year-old of his mobile at knifepoint in Deeley Street, Quarry Bank.

He then managed to sell that phone for £107 to the same second hand store from which it was later recovered by police.

Thomas-Hodge, now living in Wretham Court, Handsworth, admitted charges involving robbery, possession of a knife and handling stolen property. He was jailed for two years.

Judge John Wait told him: "This was a spate of serious robberies during which weapons were used to threaten or inflict pain to reinforce those threats. There was no great reward but real fear was induced and this has had long term consequences for the victims."