Cashpoint robber jailed for terrifying spree
A DRUG addict robber preyed on vulnerable women at high street cashpoints to feed his addiction to crack cocaine and heroin.
CCTV captured homeless father-ofthree Nathan Shepherd, 31, laying in wait outside Lloyds Bank in Moston where he would take care to leave the male customers and then pounce when he saw a woman.
Now Shepherd has been jailed for his crimes, sobbing to the judge who locked him up him: “I’m absolutely ashamed of my actions.”
Nathan Shepherd, 31, went on a 13-day crime spree from January 27 this year, targeting lone women aged between 30 and 50 at a Lloyds Bank cashpoint on Moston Lane in Moston, Manchester Crown Court heard.
During the first attack at 3pm on January 27, he snatched £50 from an NHS worker, leaving her unable to return to work because of an ache to her left arm and was worried about looking after her three children.
In the following days Shepherd stuck twice more at the cashpoint and also stole a bag from a woman outside her home in Blackley.
He bought goods worth £70 on her bank card and she was so traumatised she was ‘shaking’ and afraid to leave the house. She even paid £150 to have the lock changed on her front door.
Then on February 8, CCTV captured Shepherd waiting for his next victim back at the cashpoint – the trustee of a local church who had come to bank the church collection money. The court heard he smiled at her and had a brief conversation but then he grabbed at her bag from behind.
CCTV showed a violent struggle as the woman resisted his attempts to take her bag.
“She fell to the ground and what followed was a tug of war with the defendant trying to pull it off her and her very gamely trying to stop him,” Brian Williams, prosecuting, said.
The bag broke during the incident, others intervened and Shepherd ran away empty-handed.
The woman was left with a sore back and a cut to her ear.
A PCSO was called to the scene and Shepherd tried to run away but he was arrested nearby. He was said to be under the influence of drugs and had to be taken to hospital before being taken to a police station to be interviewed.
Shepherd had a large number of previous convictions but none for robbery.
David Morton, defending, told the court his client ‘utterly apologises for his behaviour.’ He said his client was now drugs free and ‘was proud of that.’
The court heard his wife, with whom he has three children, had told him he was no longer welcome at the family home because of the ‘negative influence’ he was having on their kids.
Shepherd, appearing in court from Forest Bank prison via videolink, made a tearful apology direct to Judge Anthony Cross QC.
“I sincerely apologise for my behaviour,” he said, adding that he had been addicted to ‘crack and heroin’ and that it meant he had lost his wife and children. He admitted he had committed ‘awful crimes under the influence of drugs.’
Shepherd, formerly of Benchill Road in Wythenshawe, was jailed for four years and six months after he admitted four counts of robbery, one attempted robbery