One-man Black Country crimewave jailed after robbing pensioner, woman and charity shop
A prolific thief who robbed an 81-year-old man at a cashpoint and ransacked a charity shop has been jailed for six years and four months.
Homeless Luke Robinson left a string of victims and a trail of destruction in a three-week crime wave across parts of the Black Country.
It began on July 14 with the first of three break-ins at the Bargain Buys shop in Birmingham Road, Blakenhall, a judge heard.
Robinson shattered the glass on the left front entrance door and stole £76 worth of toothpaste overnight before following it with two more carbon copy burglaries at the store the following day and a week later.
The overall haul of toiletries totalled more than £300 and he left a £6,880 repair bill after the three offences as well as leaving his sleeping bag behind, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
The 38-year-old then snatched £100 from an 81-year-old man who he pushed to the ground and pocketed the money just withdrawn from a cash machine at the Asda supermarket in Darlaston on July 16, explained Mr Richard McConaghy, prosecuting.
Three days later Robinson robbed a woman outside the nearby Lloyds Bank, hitting her on the jaw with a bottle in a bag but she fought back, alerting people with her screams and putting Robinson to flight with one of the four £20 notes she had taken from the cash machine.
The defendant hit the jackpot when he broke into a house in Willenhall Street, Darlaston, Walsall, 19 minutes after the occupants left at 8.45am on July 23.
He escaped with £700 cash and a haul of jewellery valued at £8,300, revealed the prosecutor.
The catalogue of crime continued at 5.45am on July 31 when he kicked in the front door of the British Heart Foundation shop in Wolverhampton city centre's Victoria Street and took the contents of the store's high value cabinet, costing the charity around £1,000 in damage and lost goods.
On August 2 he stole products worth £80 from a nearby hair salon and was arrested the following day.
Mr Charles Crinion, defending, declared: "He was homeless and addicted to drugs as he sank to a new low."
Robinson, who had previous convictions for 92 offences, 62 of which were for theft and kindred crimes, admitted all eight offences.
