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12
Feb
A Harrogate teenager has been jailed for an attempted knifepoint robbery in which he lunged at the victim with a serrated blade after warning him: "Don’t think I won’t take your life".
The named victim and his female friend heard the “click” of a folding knife after Danny Smyth crept up on them in King Edward’s Drive in the Bilton area of Harrogate and demanded his mobile phone.
Smyth, 19, from Pannal, had followed the two friends onto King Edward’s Drive and crossed over onto their side of the street before creeping up behind them, prosecutor Kelly Clarke told York Crown Court.
The victim asked him:
Smyth replied:
The victim and his friend then heard a “click” and saw Smyth holding a three-inch serrated switchblade which he “flicked out”.
They said they heard the flick or lock knife “crack into place”.
Smyth then told the victim:
The terrified victim quickly crossed the road to try to escape. As he walked away, he said to his friend: “What was all that about?”
Ms Clarke said that Smyth must have heard him because he crossed the road again towards the victim and repeated: “Don’t get lippy.” Ms Clarke added"
The knife missed and the victim struck Smyth in the face in self-defence, knocking him into a bush. The victim and his friend then ran away and called police.
They said the victim’s eyes were “like saucers” and that he was clearly under the influence of some kind of substance.
Officers soon located Smyth and arrested him. He was taken to Harrogate Police Station where he became extremely aggressive and verbally abusive with officers.
One of Smyth’s co-defendants in that case, 20-year-old Lewis Edmondson, of Byland Place, and a youth who can’t be named for legal reasons, had been walking along the street when the youth fell into a hedge outside a property in Knox Chase.
Neighbours Neil Lyons, 51, and Andrew Preston, 50, came out of their property to confront the pair because there had been “a number of incidents involving youths in Knox Chase in the past”.
Ms Clarke said a fight broke out among all five males present, including Smyth. The incident was captured on CCTV and witnessed by residents including an elderly woman.
All five males were charged with an offence under the Public Order Act, namely using or threatening unlawful violence. They all admitted the offence and appeared for sentence today – almost three years after the incident.
Defence counsel for all but Smyth were spared the need for mitigation after judge Sean Morris said that all the defendants would be receiving 12-month conditional discharges for the offence.
However, as Smyth’s co-defendants walked free from court, he remained in the dock to be sentenced for the attempted robbery, carrying a knife and two counts of assaulting police officers during the incident in June 2023, all of which he admitted.
Handing Smyth a two-year jail sentence, he told the teenager he already had a “nasty” record for one so young.
However, Smyth will only spend half that sentence behind bars, less the time he had already spent on remand, before being released on prison licence.
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