‘ANTISOCIAL NUISANCE’ ATTACKED MAN WITH STOLEN COFFEE JAR
A PROLIFIC Grimsby thief attacked a man with a jar of coffee he had just stolen and then stamped on his head. John Cooper, 37, of no fixed abode, targeted his victim after he mistook him for a homeless man outside Sainsbury’s in St Peter’s Avenue and gave him some change and food.
As the man left the shop, he saw Cooper being escorted from it for stealing a jar of coffee and Cooper then went on to follow him.
Adam Walker, prosecuting, told Grimsby Crown Court on Wednesday, that the attack happened in January this year.
He said: “Cooper offered to sell him a jar of coffee that he had just stolen and the man refused.
“What followed was a blow to the back of his head. What happened was that Cooper had hit him with the coffee. He fell to the floor and Cooper stamped on his head four times.” The man managed to get to his feet but then Cooper threatened him with a knife.
Mr Walker said: “He demanded he give him his bank card and phone. The man said he feared for his life. He handed over his wallet which had his bank cards and driving licence.” The man’s address was also on the wallet, and Cooper had taken his house keys, when he said: “Is it worth being stabbed for?”
Cooper’s victim called the police while he was still there but he later fled. He was arrested later that day and when his flat was searched by Humberside Police, officers found the man’s bank card, which Cooper claimed to have found.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court, the victim told how he is now scared to go out on his own and feels vulnerable when he does.
He told the court: “This is no life to live.”
Cooper, who has 55 convictions for 212 offences including 103 for theft, also stood to be sentenced for a number of thefts, including that of a mobile phone from a charity worker in January this year.
Mr Walker told the court the woman worked for a homeless charity and could not find her phone. She realised her phone - which also had her bank card in it - had been taken when she received a notification to say her bank card had been used at a Nisa shop on Victor Street.
The card was then used for another two transactions.
Cooper also appeared to be sentenced for theft after he stole a paperboy’s pushbike from outside a shop in January this year while the 14-year-old was inside collecting his round. Mr Walker added: “In August 2019 by the Grimsby Magistrates’ Court Mr Cooper was made the subject of a criminal behaviour order prohibiting him from going into Grimsby town centre.
“On December 19 last year he breached that by entering Freshney Place shopping centre. On December 29 he also entered a Poundland on Victoria Street and stole coffee from there. On January 2 this year, he also walked through the shopping centre and was escorted out again.” Mitigating, Andrew Bailey, told the court that the robbery was carried out in “desperation” as Cooper was “living hand to mouth” at the time.
He said: “He was on drugs and it was the usual situation we see. His mental health has always been flaky and had gone downhill and where he had began to turn things around and he got a job as a forklift driver but hadn’t been paid. “The main point he wanted to put to me is that he wanted to apologise to his victim. He is genuinely remorseful.” Recorder Hawks branded Cooper a “horrendous social nuisance” and as he jailed him for five years, told him: “You have an appalling record. You have had a life blighted by substance misuse that has led you into inquisitive offending.
“You confined yourself into being an antisocial nuisance.”
Cooper will have to serve half of his sentence in prison before being released on licence.