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:
“What’s your problem? What’s wrong?”
Smyth replied:
“Don’t think I won’t take your life.”
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:
“Don’t think I won’t stab you. Don’t get lippy.”
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”
“He saw the phone in (the victim’s) hand and demanded it. He then lunged at him with the knife.”
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.
Abused police
One officer was called a deeply offensive name as Smyth threatened to “knock her the fxxx out” and spit in her face, before kicking that officer and her colleague repeatedly in the arms and legs.
The shocking series of events occurred on June 13 last year while Smyth was already facing a public-disorder charge at the Crown Court following a previous violent incident in Harrogate on April 16, 2021, when police were called out to Knox Chase by neighbours.
“Police were called (out) to reports of…males fighting with residents,” said Ms Clarke.
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.
14 previous offences
Before sentence, Ms Clarke reminded the court of Smyth’s six previous convictions for 14 offences including carrying a knife, public disorder, battery and racially aggravated threatening behaviour.
Defence barrister Kristina Goodwin said that Smyth, a former Harrogate College student, had mental-health issues and traits of an anti-social personality disorder.
She added that Smyth, who had once been involved with the Sea Cadets and gained a Prince’s Trust award at college, had endured a difficult childhood and turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. He had been using cocaine “for a few years” and the drug abuse had resulted in him starting to get into trouble by 2020.
She said that Smyth, of Pannal Green, had been remanded in custody since his arrest in June last year, which was the equivalent of 16 months’ jail time already deemed served.
Judge Mr Morris, the Recorder of York, told Smyth he was “so lucky you didn’t kill someone” in the attempted knifepoint robbery.
He added:
“Knives are the scourge of the city streets at the moment and you would have been up for murder (if the attack had been fatal). You should hang your head in shame.”
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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