Knifeman targeted boy of 10
Youngster tells of cashpoint robbery terror
JON MACPHERSON
ADRUG addict who tried to rob a 10-year-old boy at knifepoint is beginning a long sentence behind bars.
Daniel Shaw targeted the youngster as he was sat in a car near the post office in Waterfoot.
Burnley Crown Court heard a female adult relative had just withdrawn £400 from a cashpoint, and passed it to the young- ster who was sat in the passenger seat, when Shaw struck.
He opened the passenger door armed with a knife and tried to grab the money from the boy, who bravely fought him off.
The court heard the boy - who cannot be named for legal reasons - said he ‘thought he was going to die’ and has been left ‘significantly affected and traumatised’ by the incident.
In a harrowing victim impact statement read out in court, he said: “I can’t sleep in my own bedroom and sleep with my mum and dad because I’m scared he will come for me.
“When I close my eyes to go to sleep I see his face right in front of me and I can’t sleep. I can’t get his face out of my head.”
Shaw, 32, of Tunstead Mill Terrace, Bacup, was locked up for 10 years.
AHEROIN and crack cocaine addict who tried to rob a young boy at knifepoint is beginning a 10-year jail sentence.
Daniel Shaw targeted the 10-year-old boy as he was sat in a car near to the Post Office in Waterfoot.
Burnley Crown Court heard how a female adult relative had just withdrawn £400 from a cashpoint, and passed it to the youngster who was sat on the passenger seat.
Father-of-two Shaw had been ‘loitering’ near the cashpoint in February this year, before he opened the car passenger door armed with a knife and tried to grab the money from the boy.
He was ‘ very bravely’ fought off by the boy and the woman before fleeing the scene.
Shaw, 32, of Tunstead Mill Terrace, Bacup, pleaded guilty to attempted robbery.
He was jailed for five years and four months and given an extended five-year sentence after Judge Jonathan Gibson classed him as a ‘dangerous offender’.
Stephen Parker, prosecuting, told the court the woman had spotted Shaw on the pavement and ‘didn’t like the look of him because she thought he was loitering’.
The court heard Shaw approached the car on Burnley Road East and pulled out a large kitchen knife as he tried to grab the money off the boy.
Mr Parker said: “She told [the boy] to let the money go and let Shaw have it, but [the boy] had other ideas and he perhaps very bravely held onto the money while the defendant was tugging at it. He didn’t want [her] to lose the money.”
The court heard the woman was leant over the boy and ‘pushed and shoved’ Shaw to get him out of the car and the boy ‘punched him at least once to the stomach’.
When Shaw started to run off, an independent witness, who saw the tail end of the incident and both victims screaming, pulled alongside the offender in his car and said ‘what are you playing at?’
Shaw then replied ‘what?’ before pulling the knife out of his pocket and running off.
Mr Parker said the woman was saying ‘sorry, sorry’ to the boy and ‘putting her arm around him trying to comfort him’. The court heard how Shaw was later identified following a police CCTV appeal and when he was arrested made ‘full and frank admissions’.