The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Botched hold-up with a fake firearm ends in jail term for repeat offender
Awould-be robber who was marched from a Fife convenience store at the point of his own “gun” has been warned further offending could see him stay in jail for the rest of his life.
Kieran Pearson was jailed for more than five years at the High Court in Edinburgh after admitting to carrying out the botched robbery in Dunfermline last year.
His bid to hold up staff at the Spar store in the town’s Townhill Road backfired when owner Zaheer Uddin Babar grabbed the weapon and turned it on him.
The 28-year-old escaped and police later discovered the gun was fake but found other items in Pearson’s home implicating him in the attempted robbery.
The High Court in Edinburgh previously heard Pearson was still on licence from a 2014 conviction for assault and robbery when he targeted Mr Babar’s store in August.
Several months after the attempted robbery, on December 21, Pearson was involved in another, with co-accused, Army veteran Craig Pritchard.
This time the pair targeted a petrol station on Bothwell Street in Dunfermline.
The shopkeeper, Yedduri Sudheer, was trapped inside with the pair as they tried to force open the till.
After being threatened with a knife and a claw hammer, Mr Sudheer was able to flee into the street, where he flagged down a passing car.
The pair made off with hundreds of pounds from the till, while Pearson filled his rucksack with tobacco.
Yesterday at Edinburgh’s High Court Pearson was jailed for 64 months, while Pritchard was imprisoned for four years.
Both will be on licence for a further two years.
Judge Lord Macfadyen
warned the pair they faced indeterminate sentences if convicted of any further offences.
He said: “These were very serious and unpleasant offences. In your case, Kieran John Douglas Pearson involving two charges, the first involving an imitation handgun.
“In the second instance you subjected filling station staff to very disturbing behaviour.
“Clearly you both present a significant risk to the public.
“If you carry on on your current criminal path you put yourself at risk of an indeterminate sentence.
“If you do receive an
indeterminate sentence you may struggle to be released.”
Last month Pearson admitted assaulting Mr Babar with the intent to rob him and assaulting Mr Sudheer and robbing him at the BP garage on the town’s Bothwell Street on December 21.
Craig Pritchard, 42, also pled guilty to the second of the charges.
Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin, for Pearson, said his client had taken to using drugs again following the death of his partner and ran up debt.
He said: “Mr Pearson accepts that a custodial
sentence is inevitable given his record and the nature of these offences.
“After his release from his last custodial sentence he was in a relationship with his long-term girlfriend.
“She suffered from illhealth and he was present when she died last year.
“After her death he began taking drugs again. He built up a drug debt.
“It’s against that background that the incident on August 15 took place.”
He said that Pearson had “got his act together” and was employed for a time by Amazon but his habit “caught up with him”,
resulting in him taking part in the second robbery.
Michael Anderson, defence counsel for Pritchard, said he was “disgusted and ashamed” by his behaviour which took place when he had been using valium.
Mr Anderson said Pritchard had previously served his country in the forces and now suffered PTSD.
Reacting to the sentence, Mr Babar said he felt that Pearson should have received a harsher sentence.
He said: “He should have got a lot more as there were two charges against him.”