Two robbers who “prowled around York like hyenas” looking for easy prey have each been jailed for eight years after they mugged two men in separate incidents within an hour of each other.
Oliver Duke Wharton and Callum Tooley, both 29, targeted the first victim as he was walking home in Del Pyke off Townend Street following a late work shift and a night out with friends, York Crown Court heard.
“The defendants approached him and told him to give them money,” said prosecutor Kelly Clarke.
“They were stood close to him in an intimidating manner and told him to give them his money and his drugs.”
The victim told them he had neither money nor drugs and walked away, but the robbers followed him.
Del Pyke, York
Tooley punched him to one side of his face and Wharton struck him to the other side. Wharton then put the victim in a chokehold “with both arms around his neck, dragging him to the floor and keeping his hands on him in this hold”.
He then frisked the victim, who was lying face-down on the ground, and stole his iPhone and Harris Tweed wallet before scarpering.
The victim, who suffered a cut to his forehead, lost his earring and apparently also his top in the struggle.
Dripping in blood from his torso, he went straight to the Spar shop in nearby Lowther Street and asked the shopkeeper if he could use the toilets to clean himself up.
In a twist of fate, the shopkeeper had also been targeted by the robbers a short time earlier that night.
He was behind the counter when Tooley stole a four-pack of Desperado beer and a 10-pack of Stella Artois while Wharton distracted the shopkeeper by placing a pint pot with beer in it on the counter, “pulling the neck of his T-shirt up over his mouth” and asking for a pack of cigarettes.
When the robbery victim turned up at the store later that night, he and the shopkeeper identified the robbers from the shop’s CCTV footage.
An hour later, at about 2.42am on 2 August, the second robbery victim left his flat in Wood Street, Heworth, when he saw Wharton and Tooley knocking on a neighbour’s window.
The robbers walked up to him, got right in his face, and asked him if he had “any baccy or weed”. When he said he had neither, they frisked his pockets and one of them grabbed his jacket so he couldn’t get away.
“The (victim) took his phone out and threw it into a nearby bush so they couldn’t steal it,” said Ms Clarke.
“When they couldn’t find anything (to steal), they became aggressive and began to punch and kick him, breaking his teeth.”
The victim suffered bruising and swelling to his head and cuts to his face.
Victim off work
Wharton and Tooley were later arrested and each charged with two counts of robbery, along with shop theft.
They ultimately admitted the offences and appeared for sentence via video link on Friday (12 September) after being remanded in custody.
In a statement read out by the prosecution, the robbery victim who was targeted in Del Pyke said he had to take a month off work following the incident due to his physical injuries and the mental strain.
The theft of his iPhone 15, worth £800, meant that he was unable to contact family and friends.
Prosecuting barrister Ms Clarke highlighted the defendants’ appalling criminal records which, in Tooley’s case, comprised 36 offences including burglary, assaulting a police officer, public disorder, threatening behaviour, robbery, affray and serious violence.
In 2022, he was jailed for two-and-a-half years for inflicting grievous bodily harm. In 2021, he was jailed for four-and-a-half years for robbery.
Wharton, of Main Street, Fulford, had for 44 previous offences dating back nearly 20 years, including robberies, carrying a knife, battery and racially aggravated assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and burglary.
Defence barrister Susannah Proctor, for Tooley, of Woodlea Avenue, Acomb, said he was heavily drunk when committing the robberies in York and could barely remember the incidents.
She said he had developed a drug habit by the age of 14 and at the time of his last prison sentence in 2022, he was addicted to heroin and “a multitude of other drugs”.
Zarreen Alan-Cheetham, for Wharton, said he too was a drug addict and was very drunk at the time of the robberies.
She conceded that his criminal record, which began when he was very young, was “quite frankly horrendous”.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told the defendants: “On the night of August 2, you two were prowling around York like a couple of hyenas, looking for victims.
“I’m quite convinced you had both decided on robbing in order to get drink or drugs and you found two lone males and attacked them.”
He added: “The time has come for you two to be taught a lesson. These convictions are a pattern and I’m going to break that pattern.”
The York pair were each jailed for eight years.