A former businessman has been jailed for over three years after his descent into alcoholism and drug addiction led to him seriously injuring an 84-year-old woman in a daylight street robbery in front of horrified shoppers.

Daniel James Bell, 32, from Harrogate, rode up to the woman on his bike as she waited for a family member outside Marks & Spencer in York city centre and snatched her handbag, York Crown Court heard.

He then rode off, dragging the terrified pensioner to the ground as she tried to hold on to her bag.

Prosecutor Kelly Clarke said the woman suffered multiple injuries including a haematoma and bruising to the head, injuries to her shoulder and elbow and a “minor traumatic brain injury”.

CCTV of the incident, which occurred in the middle of the afternoon on July 24 last year, showed Bell riding up to the woman with a rucksack on his back.

He said, “Excuse me”, before snatching her handbag in a busy pedestrian area teeming with shoppers.

The footage showed the beleaguered victim lurching forward as she tried to hold onto the bag, before being “dragged” to the ground as Bell rode off. 

‘You don’t think it will happen to you’

In a victim statement read out by the prosecution, the pensioner said she was still in pain four months after the incident and her injuries meant she had to cancel a holiday with a friend.

She had to undergo surgery because the robbery had exacerbated an existing shoulder injury, which resulted in her having to wear a sling which prevented her from driving. This had affected her independence because she lived in a village and needed her car to get about.

She was still undergoing physiotherapy on her injured shoulder and her injuries meant that activities she loved such as gardening had to be curtailed.

She added: 

The robbery outside M&S was one of a bewildering series of thefts, including the theft of charity boxes from shops, during Bell’s crime spree, which lasted about 12 months between 2024 and 2025.

The robbery was an “escalation” of his rampant thievery and marked a spectacular fall from grace for a “highly qualified” electrician who once ran a thriving electrical business which ultimately went bust, sparking a downward spiral into alcoholism, drug addiction and criminality.

Thieving spree

Bell’s thieving spree included the theft of 15 bottles of wine worth £157 from a Morrison’s store in York on 15 September, 2024.

Three weeks later, on August 7, York Minster Police called out their counterparts at North Yorkshire Police after Bell stole a charity box from the Shared Earth eco-shop at Minster Gates.

Minster Police detained Bell until uniformed police arrived. They found the charity box inside his backpack.

About two months later, he stole £75 of alcohol from Marks & Spencer in York city centre but was later arrested in the street where officers found two charity boxes on him which had been stolen from Barnitts department store in Colliergate earlier that day.

When questioned about the thefts, the former businessman became upset and told officers: “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

At the Warhammer gaming store in the Lendal area of York, Bell stole two video games but was spotted by the shopkeeper who gave chase as the thief left the store. When he caught up with him and asked for the stolen items back, Bell threatened to stab him if he called the police and didn’t let him go.

In April last year, he began targeting shops in Harrogate, stealing Lego sets worth nearly £132 from WH Smith, two weeks after stealing £100 of electrical toothbrushes from Boots, over £200 of goods from Marks & Spencer, more than £60 of items from Sainsbury’s and £32 of goods from Tesco.

Bell, whose last registered address was a homeless shelter in Bower Street, Harrogate, was charged with over 20 thefts, robbery, obstructing a police officer, failing to surrender to court custody, going equipped and common assault in relation to the incident at the War Hammer gaming shop where he threatened to stab the shopkeeper in the street. The whole litany of offences, which were in breach of a suspended prison sentence, formed 10 separate case files.

He ultimately admitted all the offences, some of which had already been dealt with at the lower court, and appeared for sentence at the Crown Court via video link yesterday (20 January) after being remanded in custody.

The offences for which he had already been sentenced including five thefts in September 2024, the common assault on the shopkeeper and failing to surrender, as well as the theft of the charity boxes which resulted in a five-month suspended prison sentence in March last year.

Despite already having been sentenced for multiple thefts, Bell still stood to be sentenced for 11 shoplifting incidents, the theft of a woman’s bike from outside a shop in York, the robbery and breaching the suspended sentence.

Defence barrister Jordan Millican said that Bell, who had 58 previous offences on his record, was otherwise a “very industrious man, a qualified electrician” who had studied electrical installation at York College and gained a degree in electrical engineering at the Open University.

The father-of-one set up his own electrical business in 2015 which he ran “successfully” for two years but which ultimately foundered in 2017 due to “an inability to properly manage and balance his books”. 

Mr Millican added:

Recorder Simon Jackson KC said that Bell had deliberately targeted the elderly robbery victim, “the consequence of which was that this woman was dragged from her feet”.

This had had a “significant impact” on her, causing her “to be without the mobility which is so important to her at her age”.

Mr Jackson told Bell:

Bell was jailed for three years and four months but was told he would only serve about half of that behind bars before being released on prison licence.

In addition, he was given a three-year criminal-behaviour order banning him from the shops he targeted.