‘Bonnie and Clyde’ couple’s meat cleaver raid on shop
THE streets of Blackpool may be a far cry from 1930s Texas.
But one couple brought the terrifying drama of Bonnie and Clyde to the seaside town when they held up a shop with a meat cleaver.
Moments earlier, Ashley Turner-Platt, 30, and her boyfriend were seen kissing outside the Spar and whispering: ‘ That’s an easy shop to rob.’
Then Turner-Platt entered the store and threw shopkeeper Lee Evans, 65, against the till and waved the weapon at him.
As his petrified wife Susan, 63, tried to shield him, the raider grabbed his jacket, held the blade over his face and made chopping motions, shouting: ‘Just give me the f****** money.’
Turner-Platt, wearing a bobble hat and gloves, fled with £210 and her 28-year- old lover – Ashley Turner – who had been guarding the door. Both were beginning jail sentences yesterday after a court heard how Mr and Mrs Evans remained so traumatised they were planning to sell up after 15 years.
The evil pair were passing the shop at 7am on November 16 last year when they hatched their plan, a court heard. CCTV footage from the alley showed them embracing against a wall before the robbery.
Mr Evans said in a statement to the court: ‘She grabbed me by my jacket and threw me into the till and was yelling at Sue to open it.
‘Having been a butcher, I know what those cleavers are like and she wasn’t messing about.’ His wife added: ‘Her face was pure evil when she was shouting at us.
‘It was absolutely terrifying for both of us. I feel very vulnerable, nervous and anxious now.
‘My trust in my customers has been destroyed and I treat them all with a degree of suspicion now. It’s not worth the risk to keep this place, considering how close we came to being seriously injured.’ Mother- of-three Turner-Platt, and Turner, both from Blackpool, stood side by side in the dock as they pleaded guilty to robbery at Preston Crown Court. They had 46 them, Defending previous inquiries Turner-Platt, offences found. between Rachel Cooper said she had been drinking and claimed her boyfriend had provided the weapon and suggested she target the shop. ‘She is appalled at what she did,’ she added. ‘She has mapped out a plan of where she needs to go from here and she needs to prioritise her children.’
For Turner, Janet Ironfield said he couldn’t remember whose idea the robbery had been and admitted their relationship was ‘toxic’.
‘He wishes for me to explain that he is sorry to the court and to the complainants,’ she added.
Turner-Platt was jailed for five years and Turner, who had a suspended sentence for assault, was jailed for six years, ten months.
Judge Graham Knowles QC said the meat cleaver had been ‘frightening and substantial’.